It has been a while between blog posts for me... I have been mulling over this post for a while in my head (which will be quite ironic after you've read the content). One of the reasons I didn't publish it earlier was I didn't have exactly the right photos to go with it. I look for inspiration, for both photography and writing, in the things around me - I was at a park recently, reading and enjoying the sun, and I saw a beautiful white lily. It was exquisite. What made it more noticeable was the surrounding, growing in a drain pipe/creek bed. It was surrounded by an ugly cement drain, onion weeds (which look beautiful but smell like, well, shockingly, onion), other weeds, rubbish, and dirt. It was just there, doing its thing. Blooming, all the more stunning for the surroundings that it was blooming in.

Sometimes in our life, we wait for it all to be perfect. want the ground around us to be clean and the way forward to be clear. We want a light for every step and a little map showing us all the hidden pitfalls and potholes along the way. We want someone else to go first so that we can make sure our path is clear. I believe that sometimes we are planted in amongst all of the stuff so that we can bloom first and be the lily. We can be the one standing tall in the middle of the weeds and muck around us. Instead of waiting for it all to be just right, we can bloom where we are planted and show the way for others. Trust that we are planted in the right place and even though we don't know all the whys, hows, and whats, we can choose to trust that the gardener has it covered - there is a reason why the ground around us isn't perfect, there is a purpose for the steps, no matter how difficult, we need to take to bloom.

When you bloom, be authentic. Don't fake it, be you, in all your glory. We don't need to be perfect, we need to be real. We need others to see that we are who we say we are. Don't offer something that doesn't hold up when people get close to you. The onion weeds that were near the lily are beautiful little white flowers. They look so delicate, sweet, and pretty. However, if you pick them and you smell them, they smell exactly like an onion. Your hands smell like onions after handling them. They look like they are beautiful flowers with a fragrance to match, but up close, they are something very different.

These purple flowers were blooming by a road side. They are actually weeds of some kind, but they stood out to me because in a really dry arid landscape, they were an amazing splash of colour. Some were growing like this in front of a random roadside gravel pile, some were growing in amongst dry grass, some were really close to the road. They had a few things in common: the first being where they were blooming was not perfect. The one in this picture even has some rubbish attached. The second is where they were blooming did not look like a natural place for a flower to bloom. Lastly, they made a difference to the landscape around them in every instance, whether they be by the road, in the gravel, or in the grass. They were noticeable in their beauty and colour.

If there is something in your life that you know you need to step forward into, but you have been hiding away because the way forward isn't clear, things aren't perfect, and the ground doesn't look perfect, I would encourage you to think about the lily and the purple flowers and just bloom. Take steps to be the lily, not the onion weed. Move forward with something you have been putting off, talk to someone who seems sad even though is scary, be who you actually are instead of who you wish you are. Don't be fake, be you.

I have thought about that lily and the onion weeds so many times and it has been a real encouragement to me to bloom where I am planted in whichever season, and be authentic while I am at it.