Lessons from Spring Flowers: Play and Be Brilliant

When I was little we used to play hide-and-go-seek in the backyard until it got too dark to see.  We also used to play with our Star Wars figures around the big old maple tree... pushing them into the holes in the roots and pretending they lived there.  As I sat down and looked at these photos I realized that arranging flowers in a bowl in my backyard is the adult equivalent of play for me.  I could spend hours rearranging, photographing, and losing myself in this activity.  

I also love working on the photos when I come back inside.  I like to adjust the lighting levels so it is perfect and I also like to try cropping the photos in different ways.  I also love to zoom into the image to see things I hadn't seen before. When I am finally finished playing with that I upload them to my blog.  And then comes the harder part for me... the writing. 

I almost always just sit back for a while and stare at the images.  I try and see what they evoke in me and what lessons they have to tell me.  Sometimes it is clear what the images have to say and sometimes I sit there going off on different tangents before I find my way. 

The main thing that kept coming to me when I looked at these photos was a sense of pure brilliant joy.  I don't think one can look at these images and not feel a little happier and energized.  I love that they are unabashedly calling the world to look at them and to pause for a moment of pure delight and wonder.

So even if spring flowers aren't your favorite form of play, I would encourage you to find the thing that calls your heart...the thing where you lose all sense of time because you are enjoying yourself.  Maybe it is reading, or building Lego fantasy realms, or ping pong or playing with your mini-poodle.  Whatever it is...find it and let yourself play.

“We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves,
or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing.”

-Charles Schaefer