“When one flower blooms, spring awakens everywhere.”

– John O’Donohue

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

– John Muir

you know how sometimes you don’t do something and you don’t do something – and then it’s the perfect time to do it? yesterday was just that time. in a burst of inspiration and a flurry of delight, i joined pinterest.

oh my goodness. you know how much i love quotes, right? pinterest is an ocean of quotable inspiration. i am in love.

(as an aside, this is why i sometimes don’t join things. i am afraid of how much i will love them and of how much time i will give them. someday i will trust myself enough to know that everything ebbs and flows, including my interests, and that spending time on things i love and in places i love is always worthwhile.)

after yesterday’s fun, i just had to make my own piece of quotable inspiration.

plus, now i can finally use the pin it button on my own website!

i feel so quiet lately. i also feel rather like a bear; this has been a winter of hibernation. i’m not sure why, but i am embracing it rather than questioning it.

i am doing less thinking and more feeling. deep inside, something is stirring, rising, calling.

if i had to put words to this experience, i would say that i am deepening my practice in following inner guidance.

the trouble (for me, at least) is that this requires an even greater level of trust – in myself and in the universe – and the practice of continual surrender. both of which, i must say, are practices not for the faint of heart. this is especially true when one’s guidance says “be still” over and over and over again. part of me really wants to shake it and say, “i’m not as brave as you think! i’m ready to be done! just tell me what to do!”

but i don’t. i let the feelings rise, and i breathe into them, and then i sink into the resulting stillness. over and over and over again.

“In the eyes of mourning the land of dreams begins.”

– Pablo Neruda

“Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits.”

– John O’Donohue, in Anam Cara

someone asked me for advice on inner beauty. specifically, they wanted to know how to acquire it.

i told her that, in my opinion, inner beauty isn’t something you can (or need to) acquire. it’s a quality of the soul. we already have it. we can’t gain or lose it. it just is.

our real work is to accept and believe and own that.

it is a cacophony of crimson moments, twirling and twinkling in an endless pirouette.

i had the best saturday morning.

i put fresh bird seed on my patio when i woke up – after forgetting about it for a week or so. the squirrels and some tiny birds came to visit immediately.

a short while later, i was standing in my kitchen making toast when i heard what sounded like an entire flock of birds chirping outside. i was sure that wasn’t possible and it was just one loud bird but i looked up anyway – i can see out the window from the kitchen – and an entire flock of tiny birds, easily 50 or more, flew up out of the bushes and into the trees in a beautiful arc. it looked like the flocks of birds that i often see while driving, where it looks like they’re all dancing in unison. my jaw dropped; it was so amazing.

i looked out at the birds on the patio a bit later only to see a varied thrush. it has a slate-grey and orange pattern and is such a pretty bird. it showed up one day a few months ago and i have been watching for it ever since (partly because i wanted to find out what kind of bird it was – this time i figured it out because i looked it up on my phone while i was looking at it).

i have decided to name the thrush sophie, even though i suspect she is a he.

i took atlas and my camera on an urban photo walk last week. by the time it was almost over, i was feeling very sad and discouraged.

i hadn’t been inspired. at all.

the few times i took photos, they felt contrived. i could tell that i was forcing myself to take photos instead of following what i was drawn to. mostly because i couldn’t understand why i wasn’t drawn to anything. that never happens! even worse, i didn’t like any of the images. at all.

i was pretty sure that my lifelong love affair with photography was over and that i would never again take another photo that i loved.

(possibly i am a tad dramatic.)

a few steps later, i saw a silver chair on the sidewalk with holes in the seat; i saw the sunlight peeking over the buildings to the right of me; and i wondered what would happen if i captured the light through the holes in the chair.

so i did. then i looked at my images and clapped with glee. i even have a series that i am pretty sure is an ode to an artist of the paintbrush, if i could just decide which artist.

all of which is just to say: if you find yourself similarly uninspired, do not despair. i feel quite sure that inspiration will return. possibly when you least expect it.