Gardening with Alex

Aligning With Purpose

Have you ever watched a sunflower grow? As the seed germinates it sends forth a tiny green shoot that eventually becomes a floret of leaves. Soon, the central stalk begins to form that will carry the sunflower head high above the soil. Yet, even when the stalk is just a few inches tall, it begins to do something amazing. The growing tip that will eventually send forth the magnificent flower begins to follow the sun. As the sun rises in the east, the baby sunflower moves it “face” toward the light. As the sun arcs through the sky, it follows. At noon, it stands straight and tall. As the sun drops lower in the sky, it follows, moving to the west. During a summer’s day, the “face” of the sunflower will travel 180 degrees from horizon to horizon.
The sunflower is aligning to its purpose in life. Something that we can consider in our own lives. For the sunflower, its purpose is to grow, produce seed that will drop to the ground or be carried away by the birds. It will provide food for many creatures. It will shade the soil and help it hold onto precious moisture during the heat of the summer. Then it will die, fall to the ground, feeding the earthworms and be recycled into the soil, in time feeding some other growing thing.
How does each of us align with the purpose of our lives? Sitting quietly observing and listening to the natural world is one way to begin to understand. There are cycles, patterns to how the world orders itself. Out of the void of the soil, a seed is germinated. It grows, lives out its particular life purpose and then dies into the void of the soil. A sunflower doesn’t worry too much about “having enough money” or “finding the right time” to live out its purpose. It “knows” it is a sunflower and what it must do to fulfill the pattern of its life.
Sometimes we forget who we are, and so we have difficulty figuring out what we are meant to do with our lives. We get frustrated, angry, unhappy, sad. One of my teachers, Dr. Maria Nemeth, suggests a way that we can find out who we are. She says, “Imagine you are in a room full of people. You look around the room and notice something. You say, “There is no purple in this room. How do you know that? First you must know what ‘purple’ is before you can identify its absence.” So, she suggests that you think about all the people, living or dead, family, friends or strangers whom you admire. Write their names down. Next to each name list the qualities or characteristics that you admire in that person. After you are done, look closely at the list and circle the qualities that appear more than once. Make a list of those qualities. These are the qualities that YOU possess, since you could not identify them in others, unless you know what they are in yourself.
Take the next step, and say to yourself, out loud, “I am” and then read the first quality on your list. Do the same thing for every one of the qualities listed. Do you now have a sense of spaciousness? A sense of knowing that you are someone to be counted on? Do you have a feeling of generosity of spirit? The sunflower knows all these things about itself without even thinking about it. But we forget our innate goodness and wholeness. That our life purpose follows naturally from who we are inside.
If you would really like to get a double-good sense of who you really are, have a friend read the list back to you saying, “You are” before reading the quality listed. Be generous and do the same for your friend. Do you have a sense now that you are going somewhere? That a path is opening for you that will give you what you most desire in your heart?
Keep your face turned to that “sun”, the light that comes from inside you. Follow it through the arc of your days. Let it rest, as you do, when the sun finally disappears below the horizon. The journey of our lives is a grand and glorious one! Share yours with others.

~Alexandra Heath