being in bloom

don’t forget to smell the roses

Roses by Franz Bischoff

I feel a wave of abundance that has recently rushed into my life. In all domains, it just feels like things are blooming. It’s such an intangible but distinct feeling. To feel like beauty, love and abundance have rushed into the air. To sense that the seeds you once planted are now producing fruit. To feel that this is a moment for you to pause and witness the unfolding instead of just being pulled towards the next task.

This is a muscle I’ve been writing about a lot lately - the process of pausing, breathing, slowing down, embracing the exhale. But I think this becomes a little easier to do when the air is filled with a lovely scent: the scent of blossoming flowers.

This is the purpose of flowers—to pull you in with their beauty. They demand your attention by just being breath-taking. This is why we plant them, why we buy them, why we harvest them, why we paint them, why we put them in our hair, why we walk down the aisle with a handful of them, why we adorn tables with them, and why we make scents out of them and then lather ourselves in them. This is why we worship flowers: they are a symbol of beauty, of presence, of pleasure.

As I have grown more comfortable in moments of being without feeling compelled to do, I have grown more capable of enjoying these things, of witnessing flowers for what they are: an invitation to breathe, to observe, to slow down.

These moments when it feels like everything is in bloom are not constant. They fade as quickly as they seem to arrive. They seduce us with their beauty, and then they disappear, leaving us yearning for the next time they emerge. Because of their fleeting nature, they are not to be dismissed, postponed or to be put off until you feel like you have earned them, or until you feel worthy of enjoying them. Conversely, they do not wait for you at all. They do not wait for you to notice that they are there before they wither and disappear. If you forget to slow down, you miss the chance to celebrate the blossoming you once yearned for. You miss the opportunity to appreciate what is here now.

This is why I adore seasons and I try to experience all four each year if possible. There is a lesson in winter—the season, of course, that everyone goes out of their way to skip, to actively insulate themselves from. That lesson, to me, is that every period of blossoming follows a period of death. I adore that each year we see the entire cycle of birth, death, and rebirth represented in the earth, in the nature that surrounds us.

I like winter. It invites you inwards. It asks you to pay attention to the quality of your experience when there isn’t beauty and life all around to keep you busy, distracted, stimulated. It asks you to nurture your seeds even when they aren’t blossoming. It asks you to have faith that your labour will produce life when the moment is ripe for it to blossom again.

Spring and summer are clearly beautiful and wonderful, they invite you to relish and admire the beauty around you. They invite you outwards. They ask you to see and be seen, to emerge and admire what is in your environment. But these seasons are so much sweeter, so much more alive to you when you’ve witnessed that same environment in the absence of the life that fills them when a time to bloom comes around. Everything is sweeter when you’ve experienced the absence of it. And even sweeter when you’ve spent some time yearning for it.

The same is true for our inner world: there are times where we are putting in labour, working the soil, where nothing is blooming and everything feels dark, cold, dry, and dead. But if we stick with it, if we have faith, if we continue preparing for a season of blossoming, we eventually begin to see the buds—the first piece of evidence that our labour will produce something.

As time progresses and blossoms emerge, we start to feel life and beauty fill the air once more… we start to feel that there was a reason for our hard work, that everything is on track. We feel like we can rest easy, knowing a season of blooming will soon be upon us. As we track towards summer, a time where everything is in bloom and the moment comes that is meant purely for enjoyment, for appreciating what is, it is then up to us to remember to slow down and take it all in before it is gone and the earth freezes over once more.

witnessing the bloom

I feel as though I am in one such moment in my inner life, where it feels like seeds I have been nurturing for some time are coming to life, and I am now beginning to understand what the labour I faithfully put in was for. I’m also aware that this phase is not permanent. I can see and appreciate the moment I am in as a moment. Something about that willingness to acknowledge the fleeting nature of a phase makes it that much sweeter. Knowing that these blooms will wither and fall to the ground, where they will get swallowed by the earth and disappear as winter rolls around, leaves me staring at the flowers a bit longer, taking in deeper inhales of the summer air.

There was a time where I could hardly even pay attention to the blooms, where I barely noticed they were there. There was a time where I felt agnostic to the seasons; where I thought that it was always time to work the earth, to pound the soil, to prepare for blooms—forgetting, of course, to appreciate them when they did appear.

I have since grown to spend more time with the flowers, to remember that when everything is buzzing with life, it is a moment to pause. A moment to appreciate. A moment to witness things as they are, now. There will always be time to work the earth—plenty of it if you live where I live—but there is not always time to step outside and enjoy summer; both literally and metaphorically.

I suppose this is just a gentle reminder that if you sense you are in a moment where things are blossoming, where your hard work is crystallizing, where what you once hoped for is coming true—it is a good idea to take some time and appreciate it. To cherish the abundance you have created. To allow it in. To take some time to be with it. There is no rush; there will be time to work harder, do more, to prepare for the next season. But don’t let this one pass without you noticing its beauty. If you are where you once wished to be, then please do remember to step outside and smell the roses. They don’t stick around forever :)

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Related essays you might enjoy: on slowness, taste and living well, slow down, get out of your head, embrace the exhale. You can also find my daily thoughts on Twitter.

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