looking ahead

Photo credit: EyesOpenWide

Don't just go through life, grow through life. Don't just be good, be good for something and someone. Goodness heightens beauty. Become who you are, who you were meant to be. Seek out knowledge and experience. The more we see, the more we are capable of seeing. The more we do, the more we are capable of doing.

If you want to change, begin it. If you want love, give it. If you want hope, embody it. Start immediately and do it flamboyantly. Once you've begun, don't turn back. Change and growth can be painful and challenging at times, but as Lauren Bond said, "Every flower has to go through a lot of dirt."

Life is about choices, growth, and taking chances. It is about pushing through and moving forward. It is about loving courageously and not holding back. It is about finding a brighter, better way. You owe it to yourself and to the world to make the most out of the stuff that's in you.

Bloom into your incredibly, gloriously, brilliantly beautiful self. The world is waiting.

- Excerpt from Bloom, Kobi Yamada & Kristel Wills (eds.), 2006. For more info on the book, click here.

photo taken in Cincinnati on November 2009 -
thought it was an unlikely bloom during late fall