Magnificence

This picture speaks to me as much as the quote does. The levels of immersion and emerging are quite profound, not to mention the water, moonlight and lotus. There is a face that appears blindfolded, looking deeper. There are faces expressing serenity, focus and determination, intensity and peace. There is an arm reaching out. This picture is a meditation in and of itself. This picture embodies knowing your magnificence.

We can’t know our magnificence without knowing the depth of who we are, including all of the things we attempt to keep hidden. There are secrets we attempt to keep from ourselves as well as from other people. When we attempt to keep secrets from ourselves, pretending events or emotions don’t exist, we reject who we are. We won’t know our magnificence while rejecting aspects of who we are. The parts we tend to reject are often that parts that allow for connection with other people, affirming the challenges on the journey…and that we survived. The struggles we want to keep secret are the very things that offered a foundation from which to grow. Our secrets don’t define us, rather they offer us information we can use to embrace our magnificence.

Water is often symbolic of emotions. This picture has both dark AND light in the water. Our emotions don’t have to be something to hide or fear; they offer light and emergence. The opposites exist so we can know them both. We wouldn’t know light if we didn’t know darkness. We wouldn’t know love if we didn’t know fear. We wouldn’t know joy if we didn’t know sadness. Just as water is always moving, whether we notice it or not, emotions are energy in motion. They, too, need to keep moving. The more we attempt to dam up our emotions, the more pressure and discomfort we feel. As a culture, we are not taught how to lean into our emotions and have healthy ways of expressing what we’re feeling. Emotions tend to make people uncomfortable. It’s a lot “easier” to be around someone who is happy than someone who is sad. It’s a lot “easier” to be happy than it is to be sad. Herein lies an important semantic differentiation. We would all benefit from referring to emotions as how we feel instead of how we are. “I am feeling sad” rather than “I am sad.” To experience sadness is very different than being defined by sadness. The energy around the two is quite different. This concept has the ability to reduce the stigma around emotions.

Another element of the picture is the lotus flower. Steven Farmer reminds us that the lotus flower is a powerful representation of unfoldment. The lotus is “rooted in the mud and muck at the bottom of a body of water, its stem reaching up to the surface.” This is how we get to know our magnificence. We get to experience the mud and muck within us and allow the blossoming to happen, reaching toward the light. The natural rhythm of the lotus flower includes closing in for rest, embracing the darkness. There is no force or pressure for the lotus. It simply responds to the light. The natural rhythm invites the uniqueness of the moment to look exactly as it is meant to look in that moment. We are invited to do the same. We, too, rise in beauty toward the light, finding time to rest, in a rhythm that is uniquely our own. There doesn’t need to be any pressure or “should’s” attached to our emergence. We can trust in the support of nature. We can trust in our own magnificence. We can embrace the beauty of our gentle power, guided by the mud and muck that helped create who we are today.