Seeding Calendula: Let It Go

This is going to be flowers someday.

As hard as I try, the siren call of Instagram is irresistible. I recognize this and take annual and weekly breaks to put a bit of a governor on my consumption and to mitigate the harmful effects of endless scrolling and unrealistic expectations.

Sundays are my weekly day off from all social media, but yesterday’s full moon and this past week’s terrible mental and physical aftershocks had me reaching for the particular brand of solace that can be found among the people I follow on Instagram, one of whom is Dr. Michael Lennox of Red Robe Astrology. He rattles off the position of the moon in relation to the planets — he’s all seska square this and trine that, and north nodes and other words and chatter. Half of this I cannot translate, but through this morning’s bleary-eyed fog, I found this:

“An empty cup will always be filled by the universe, so when in doubt, let it go.”

That I understand. That I can see as some guidance. Nothing specific, necessarily, but applicable and easy to remember. When things are cloudy, when words don’t mean action, when sadness and despair see me grasping and clinging, I can open my hands and my heart and just let that shit go.

It’s the same thing in yoga. When I was becoming a yoga teacher a million years ago, one piece of advice stuck with me: when you are in a balancing pose and find yourself tipping, don’t contract your body to catch yourself. Whenever you are swaying and weaving, expand. Open. Rise into the pose more. Contraction is less stable than lifting yourself up and out.

I am in doubt, which is to say I am also letting things go. Expanding. Like that little calendula seeds I stuck in the soil of an empty egg carton this morning. Sowing seeds this winter so that they can root down as they rise into the air, bright orange blooms bursting into flower with medicine for the literal body and the metaphorical soul.

Letting the universe, whatever that means, fill my cup. Letting things go. Opening to new possibilities, new energies, new ways of seeing through old eyes. Seeding calendula, a healing balm of a flower that brings comfort to the nervous system, especially when in recovery from shock or trauma, is an act of hope. Odd how two packets of these seeds found their way to me this spring, unexpectedly but right on time.

Onward.