We are in a time of transition, a place of flux between outmoded ways of life and another’s fresh emergence. Collectively, we are beginning to adopt green as a paradigm for living, a new design map for how to make daily choices on sustainability, ways of being and behavior that honor the balance of living systems within both natural and human social communities. In sensing the new emergence, it is an opportunity to think more ‘resourcefully’ and to re-envision our lives and make the world anew, to join with others and with nature, and find the common ground of enduring bonds of mutuality.

Changing the paradigm to one of green sustainability underscores one of the most urgent issues of our time for we humans to accept that creative expression is our true nature. It is a major challenge of our times to use our creative faculties for the good of human life, and other forms of life on the planet as well. Our true nature is expressed as an urge to grow and become more fuller and refined versions of ourselves; in much the way a seed fulfills its own blueprint and becomes the inviting sun-infused lushness of fruit, the unforgettable fragrance of a flower or the stately majesty of a towering tree. We are all local sites of ‘creation.’ As sparks of the divine, we are all ‘works in progress’ with purposeful urgency to become true to our pattern integrity and to grow to our own full stature.

Visionary astrologer Robert Wilkinson has a term for hunkering down into what he calls a ‘narrow destiny.’ A narrow destiny might feel safe, but it won’t stop feeling cramped, nor will it ultimately satisfy, as it creates a penchant to live in a compensatory manner, rather than the satisfaction of doing what’s in us, and offering our real value to the world.

In a world undergoing vast metamorphosis at all levels and among all groups, we need to take our understanding of creativity out of its narrow designation as something an artist does and is, and begin to embrace a more fully faceted awareness of our authenticity in daily life. In the unfolding era we are entering, we should be identifying all the aspects of our creative faculties as a human group, and become fully engaged in realizing what is this true nature. As a testimony to the importance of developing this capacity in the current time, Orange County real estate developer of green and recycled centers Shaheen Sadeghi made a comment recently that “Creativity is as important as literacy” in the future that is unfolding.

Two facets of creativity that we need to readily employ include the ability to adapt to changing conditions in a way that is germane as our sensing informs us, and to think outside the box, in order to leave stale ways of seeing the world behind. As with any creative process, the greater the ability to be resilient enough to shift perspective, an aspect of design mind, is an indication of an openness to allows more possibilities to emerge.

While moving into the unknown can bring a degree of uncertainty and edginess, it also offers a fresh juiciness and an ability to claim our true citizenship as activists in authenticity. Like all artists in life, we are being called to engage with passion and purpose, meeting challenges of our times as creative opportunities to show the potency of being authentic in meeting the moment. We have the capacity to renew the world that we inhabit through the greening power of our creative faculties of imagination, ingenuity, curiosity, synthesis, innovation and intelligence. Although the times are precarious, there is also a promise of a new beginning, as we step into finding both the individual and group genius of being our best.

Here in the United States, we had a time during the challenge of World War I to plant Liberty Gardens. During World War II, it was important to plant Victory Gardens. We now have an opportunity to cultivate another form of victorious garden; one of free expression; by planting the seeds of our own individual and collective greatness. The greening power of expressing our pattern integrity has enormous capacity to transform our lives in ways we don’t expect and that can open new vistas of perception.

Like the flowers, it is time to bloom where we are planted, to join in the celebration of a world that we glimpse through participating in a garden form of life and developing more sensitivity and sensibility. A garden is common ground where interdependence among different species, a degree of harmony and beneficial relations may thrive. As flourishing members of the garden way of life, flowers can show us that we should unfurl our authentic nature, showing off the uniqueness and beauty that is ours to share for a while as we travel through form.

A piece from nineteenth century gardener and writer Celia Thaxter, who wrote a book called The Island Garden, expresses her profuse loving awareness of the plants inhabiting the garden. She shares her adoration of poppies:

To stand by the beds at sunrise and see the flowers awake is heavenly delight. As the first long, low rays of sun strike the buds, you know they feel the signal! A light air stirs among them; you lift your eyes, perhaps to look at a rosy cloud or follow the flight of a caroling bird, and when you look back again, lo! the calyx has fallen from the largest bud and lies on the ground, two half transparent, light green shells, leaving the flower petals wrinkled in a thousand folds, just released from their close pressure. A moment more and they are unclosing before your eyes. They flutter out on the gentle breeze like silken banners to the sun, and such color! (pgs. 83-4)

The flowering plants have been on the planet for more than 100 million years. They hold an enormous volume of evolutionary understanding that we may access as we engage more fully in realizing they are part of the community of life as much as we are.

Through exercising our capacity for imagination and synthesizing intelligence, while showing interest in developing new ways of perceiving the diverse natural forms of life, we are greening our current awareness and simultaneously seeding a future with more colorful possibilities inherent in widening our perception. As we acknowledge and honor the intelligence and beauty that we enjoy as citizens of Earth, we are cultivating a harvest of understanding to enrich and expand the kinship circle of life on the planet.