"Seeing beauty in a flower could awaken humans, however briefly, to the beauty that is an essential part of their own innermost being, their true nature," Tolle says. "Flowers would become for us an expression in form of that which is most high, most sacred and ultimately formless within ourselves. Flowers, more fleeting, more ethereal, and more delicate than the plants out of which they emerged, would become like messengers from another realm, like a bridge between the world of physical forms and the formless."

Not only is it exciting to read these words, but to acknowledge the source of them as someone respected in the saying so. Already renowned for his Power of Now, Tolle's acclaim reached epic porportions when Oprah not only listed his book in her 2008 book club but co-hosted the first free international teleclass to discover The New Earth . I think it topped out at one million participants.

WRAPT ATTENTION = FLOW

Humans can't be creative unless we're totally focused on something, according to Winnifred Galligher, author of Wrapt Attention and the Focused Life. To be in the FLOW is to be engaged in something challenging, but with top-down attention, according to Galligher. "You are creating your reality by the things you focus on; and the things you don't pay attention to are not part of your reality." As we've have a f-l-o-w sign in our shop for the past seven years since we moved to this space, these ideas came to mind from what was originally a 'flowers' sign without enough room for the 'ers' on the end.I liked the idea of being int he flow so it stayed as a conversation-starter.

A FLOWER IS A WINDOW INTO THE FORMLESS

And in my little corner, I feel my toe might be on this path as the words came for this site that find some compatability with Tolle's insight. Without being contrived, the sense of what came to me here is that flowers-connect, and part of that connection was the ethereal. "When you are alert and contemplate a flower, crystal or bird without naming it mentally, it becomes a window for you into the formless," Tolle says. A reason why these three 'en-lightened' life-forms have played such an important part in the evolution of human consciousness since ancient times..."

FLOWERS ENHANCE HAPPINESS

Harvard Professor, Barbara Etcoff has research that says it's true. Flowers enhance happiness, if we can put our finger on what happiness is, exactly.

DISNEY'S FLOWERS AS MESSENGERS

And out of the mind of Walt Disney in the first color cartoon to win an oscar in the 1930s, we can see these messengers from another realm in action.Flowers used to enhance lightheartedness.For fun.

FLOWER PARABLES

I've had a postcard in my desk drawer for many years with a pen and ink drawing of the Girl who spoke with flowers and I liked the idea behind that, especially when most of my young adult life was aligned with the Era of Vulgarity. It came close on the heels of the Era of Sexual Liberation, but now heading into mid-age, most of us are sick to death of the four-letter words that replaced real conversation. So when I came across this parable about a girl crying flowers, it seemed like a good thing.

SEE INTO A FLOWER

To help eliminate stress, spend some time in a GAIAM flower meditation room and you'll sense the possibility of flowers.

MEDITATE ON THE WAY OF THE FLOWER

In case you don't read our blog,I'll do double-posting of what is flower prayer. "When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds, there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence. It “inter-is” with everything else in the universe." --Thich Nhat Hanh(1995)

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