Are you dripping with life?

The sun shines longer in the spring, telling the trees it’s safe to reveal the countless buds beneath their scales. And when green blankets the earth, we’re inspired to show our own colors; but we don’t have to wait for spring.

I’m looking at stargazer lilies. They’re lush with fragrance and color. While one bud opens, another gains definition and pigment, maturing enough to open. You can almost watch as the stamens release their pollen. Designed to trap and hold the pollen, the stigma is wet and sticky; it literally drips. Flowers are the reproductive organs of plants! Buddha said, “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.” I want to be the miracle!

You don’t have to make babies; but if you want to keep your relationship dripping with life, keep growing … and help your partner grow. How? Stimulate the buds that lie dormant, risk “failure” for growth, live regardless of the consequences, trust life; and give your partner a safe place to reveal the “private” parts of his authentic self, to learn, to aim high, to miss, and try again.

It’s easy to get complacent, though. How do you continue to grow, without getting tired or discouraged? Look at your potential and feed it. So much of it is yet to be seen and reached. Discover more of you today. Share more of you today — and tomorrow. Quit looking for something in particular in yourself, and your partner. Look for what’s there. You don’t have to pass judgment on it or analyze it. Trust it.

Don’t make yourself do anything! Do what you can’t wait to do. That’s where your passion lies. So often we think we have to search for our bliss. Maybe that’s because instead of simply noticing that we revel in wrestling and tickling, baking pies, writing thank you notes, or visiting friends in the hospital, we look for something more practical. It’s as though we’re looking for what we love to do, but if we truly love it, it’s too much like fun … and that’s not allowed. But as a practical matter, that’s what we can do better than we can do anything else.

When you’re alive, passionate, and at your best, you’re attractive! When you’re growing, you’re not old news; there’s always something new to learn about you. You don’t get to know somebody — including yourself — once and for all. Disclosure, or unveiling, is an ongoing process. When two people stop getting to know each other, because they think they know all there is to know, they lose the mystery and excitement. A relationship is like a person; it’s either growing or dying.

As long as you continue to discover more about yourself, you have something new to share. That means keeping your relationship fluid and unpredictable. You don’t have to take up tennis or learn to play the piano. You don’t have to go back to school or learn to pole dance. Do what you long to do … and don’t stop because it seems frivolous. If you delight in baking pies, maybe you want to bake six or six hundred. Maybe you want to get a partner and start a business. If you light up around children, maybe you want to volunteer in a kindergarten class once a week. If you fancy lingerie, wear it more often, model it for an art class, or create your own line.

We miss out on the deepest and best parts of who we are when we get scared off by what seems insignificant, impractical, too sensual, too intimate, or so beautiful that it’s intimidating! Look at the naked you … and awaken your passion! Don’t stop at the surface, look at what’s raw and primal. Understand more of you. Share more of you. And your relationship will groan with new life, burst with wild flowers, and flourish as long as you both shall live.