Seeking the Nectar
All around our neighborhood one can find patches of honeysuckle. Each spring when the honeysuckle blossoms the vines are filled with delicate yellow and white flowers accompanied by a sweet fragrance that is undeniable. While the flower is delicate the fragrance is potent. This fragrance invites you to get closer to investigate its source. Once you have answered the call you will always find it easy to recognize. As the yellow and white flowers are actually quite delicate, they have a gift that's hiding at the center of each blossom. As a child I learned how to take a honeysuckle flower, pinch the base of the flower from behind to gently lift out the main stamen as it reveals a tiny - tiny little drip of flower nectar. The reward for the effort is small, but the sweetness offers a dopamine hit that will leave you returning even as an adult by the side of the path pinching one flower after another.
Alongside my grandchildren we stand by the path pinching flower after flower seeking that teeny tiny reward. The nectar is almost too small to see. It looks like a drip that would be hanging off the head of the pin, but so sweet is the reward that the effort of going after that tiny little bit of nectar, flower after flower, becomes a satisfying effort.
This is a great metaphor to encourage one to be on an eternal journey to know thyself as the reward of our seeking to know our inner landscape because with each new awareness, with each recovered memory, and with each recalled felt experience we grow. Every memory and internal truth, as it is remembered and felt, reveals a measure of our personal power. Seeking, truly earnest seeking to know yourself in the naked light, continuously reveals little pockets of personal power.
Each time we turn within to know ourselves with greater clarity the reward is measured in an intrinsic way that leaves you feeling quite self-empowered. When one takes on this journey of self-realization, just as the bit of nectar you find at the end of the stamen from the honeysuckle flower, through this practice, you reclaim your power.
There are many reasons that cause individuals to not seek inner knowledge. Most of these reasons have to do with the pain encased in each pocket of memory, but what is not obvious initially to a new seeker, is the reward. The reward, like nectar, is subtle, offering you tiny bits of energetic power that grow over time leaving you feeling powerful, creative, and safe to be in the world, safe to who you were born to be – undefended, authentic and so beautiful.
In a recent talk, I spoke of the ultimate self-care to be the act of giving oneself permission to be who we are, as we are. No more twisting ourselves into a pretzel to get praise or approval. Every reclaimed feeling that was once avoided has within it a bit of personal power. Every healed emotion affords us a path to our creativity. To seek the nectar of our own soul is to return to a state of wholeness, reclaiming all our parts. This inner journey is not for the meek, it takes courage, but the rewards are great.
Go bravely into that inner world, slowly, intentionally and you will find the beauty of your essence – your own sweet, beautiful nectar. It will leave you grounded in your ultimate connection to all that is.
