I ran across a brief note to myself today, a sentence from a seminar I took awhile ago. “We are here to flourish and bloom!” What an interesting lens to look at my current life through and to look at what I want to create. January is a month for focusing on the theme for the rest of my year, and this little sentence may be a key to a change in emphasis for me.

As is true of many women, my family has been a primary focus in my life. First it was as a sister and daughter, then as a Mother and wife, and most recently as a Grandmother. These are roles though, not who I am. Sometimes these roles have created a time of blooming and flourishing; sometimes there has been strife and angst.  After all of that though, they are still roles I play and have played, not the truth of who I am.

Speaking with a very dear friend today brought some of this into sharper focus for me. What if we cannot become as powerful and useful as we are supposed to be unless we are able to leave behind all those roles and push off into the unknown terrain of Wise Woman/Crone? Maybe the ties that bind me to a definite place in my family of birth and origin actually keep me from becoming  myself? Can I step into my own wisdom and power as an elder if I do not loosen the tethers I have to the roles of the younger me?

Another statement from this same slip of paper is equally intriguing. “The extent that the world is working is the extent we are stepping into our power.” Applied to the previous ideas, this speaks to me of allowing my deeper, wiser self to emerge and be as powerful as I can sense her to be. I have gifts and talents that can be of use in the world and they have remained under the proverbial bushel for fear it would make someone else seem ‘less’ or take the spotlight off of one of my own.

The ‘everyone else comes first’ idea is from a time when we didn’t live this long with as much health as we have now. In many ways we are on the very edge of the known Universe looking into an unknown future. It occurs to me that we are the elders that have the life skills, the time, the health, and the wisdom to step fearlessly (or not so fearlessly) into what CAN be instead of what has already been.

Dream your dream of how the world can look and feel! Allow the juiciness and passion of the best Earth has to offer us fill your thoughts, and picture a future we can all prosper in. What have you learned by living that allows you to see into a future of beauty? What didn’t work and what brought you gifts beyond expectation? Where is love found and how do you and I cultivate our lives so that each one of us flourishes and blooms? Create a vision of healthy foods, clear, clean water, and vibrant communities that care for the Earth we live in. Dare to breathe in these possibilities above all others, and we can go there together.

We each know the qualities and attributes that are present inside us that give our lives deep meaning, joy, and beauty. We also know that these are the very things that create a peaceful and prosperous world for us – regardless of possessions, position, and cold hard cash. Now, finally, this is what is important in my life. I have lived long enough and lived through enough situations that I do not fear being ‘thrown out into the cold’ so to speak. Been there; done that and I’m here to tell you it’s just another curve in the road. Wait a minute and this too will change.

My true power is within, and I have been funding it all of my life – with all of my life! Now I am ready to claim what I am, and use all the power that I have, to help create a world flourishing and flowering with the best that we have to give. Walk in beauty, my friends, flourish and bloom.