a flower

Flowers in Glacier National Park, Montana
(c) 2007 Wendee Holtcamp

I just started reading Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth, along with some girlfriends, the same ones who I was reading The Artist's Way with. I picked it up on the way back from Australia at the airport because people kept talking about it. I flipped through and at first it didn't really strike a chord but since my girls are reading it, I said ok let's do it. So just the other day, I read Chapter 1 and actually this time I really loved it. I had a couple revelations. He talks about how a flower is like a leap in evolution, and kind of symbolizes a leap in consciousness. This symbolism is interesting since I've just been buying myself flowers again, and was just talking about that as an act of self-love.

As I mentioned, I've also started trying to meditate for 10 minutes per day, and Tolle tells a story about a group of monks whose teacher came to lecture and he simply brought a flower. After a long time, one monk started to smile. He was apparently the only one to "get" the sermon. So besides trying to smile in my liver, I'm trying to meditate on a flower.

This is normally how my meditations go, something like this:

I envision a flower. A lavender rose, the ones my daddy planted for me. I can almost smell it. Then I see fields of wildflowers. I'm a wildflower person.I love wildflowers. Stop thinking, focus. Flower. Flowers. Lots of colorful wild flowers everywhere. Lots of different colors of flowers, like a giant field overflowing with flowers - blue, red, yellow. A single lavender rose. I miss Sean. I wish it was easier. I love him. Lord, help me to know do I follow my heart or follow my head? Problem is, my mind can see both sides of any argument, and I often don't know which one I really belong on. Stop intellectualizing Wendee. Focus. Flower! I should blog about this. [Start composing blog in my head.] I have monkey mind. I wonder how Daline is. Focus! Flower. Flowers. I am hungry. I need some coffee. FLOWER! A simple Gerber daisy. Red. That's Sus' favorite. I have some on my table. Flowers represent a change, a growth, an evolution, a flowering and blooming of consciousness. I want to be there. I want to be a flower. I want to evolve. Flower.

And so on... Ah well, at least it's a start. Liz Gilbert actually has a funny passage about meditating in her book, Eat, Pray, Love.

Anyway Oprah made A New Earth her book club pick, and she is doing Summer School where people can read the book together, do the workbook, share in the Forum, etc. Here is a page with a video interview -- you see several authors in rotation on the page. One is Eckhart Tolle & there are 3 videos. But… the thing that is for the book is called Summer school and you go to this link for Oprah's 10-part series