Early morning and I am walking down 18th Street in San Francisco with one daughter on my left and the other a block away pulling out buckets and buckets of flowers that we will make bouquets from.  It is Mother’s Day and I have been working with both my daughters the last few days surrounded by flowers and the natural beauty of both women shining through the work we were involved in. The market where Maia works was short staffed for Mother’s Day, their busiest flower day ever (!), and so Calli and I offered too help.  We started early Friday morning at the San Francisco Flower Market following Maia around as she performed her particular magic – know ing where to go, what to purchase, and spreading delight wherever she went.  We then filled our cars to the brim with lilacs, roses, posie greens, buckets of ranunculus, hydrangea, sweet peas and delivered the goods to the two stores.  Calli and I then proceeded to trim, cut, and prepare twenty bundles of lilac, hundreds of roses, sweet arrangements of peonies, create bouquets guaranteed to entice and please any mom, all the while sipping small shots of coffee from The Mill, laughing with each other, trading shoes when our feet got too tired and burying our faces in the fragrance of the lilacs when our spirits flagged.  Sunday morning dawned clear and cold and what happened that day was remarkable.  The above photo is of a tree peony and for the last three days we had been watching it slowly open up – as this beauty got showier and showier and fuller and fuller in its abundant glory, people would stop in their mad rush forward to take a moment and stare, then smell, and then, take a moment to pause and appreciate the abundance and magnificence of the natural world.  I couldn’t help but reflect on the invitation this flower presented – get showier and showier, become more and more glorious as nature reveals yourself to you and never apologize!  This beauty never did, still isn’t and graces my desk this afternoon.  On Mother’s Day Sunday, as children rushed around picking out the perfect bouquets for mom, this beauty held court surrounded by many other single stems of the same flower – I sold all the others. This one continued to open and astonish all who took a moment to pause and watch her slow entry into an ever unfolding glory. At the end of the day, this became the one flower I took home.  As it opens even further it is a beautiful reflection of the work that beckons me forward in my life and resides at the center of my teaching – blossom, emerge, continue to open, close when it is too cold yet don’t forget to open when the warmth returns and BE the beauty that you are.