I love cultivating others and I love being cultivated.  My imagination of kindness is an act that cultivates, establishes and nurtures the circumstances and environment for the flourishing of an individual and the whole of humanity.

Flourish comes from the Latin verb florere which also means to blossom or to prosper. How do we act so that the six recipients of our kindness flourish, flower, and prosper.  We cultivate.

We might also imagine the Holy Nights as the twelve nights of inner cultivation so that in the coming year something of great beauty will bloom or we might find our souls prospering with new inner wealth.

What are the imaginations of cultivation?

For me, as a soul seeking to cultivate or to be cultivated:

• I imagine how to comfort. Comforting is cultivating the past.
• I imagine how to prepare. Preparing is cultivating the present.
• I imagine how to challenge. Challenging is cultivating the future.

COMFORT

When I am comforted my sense that I matter is cultivated. Comforting cultivates my well-being, my sense of grace and rightness.  Comforting cultivates my balance and my alignment. Comforting cultivates my center and my boundaries. Comfort cultivates the ordering and calming of my life so far.

Comforting is a redeeming of karma/out past and frees us to fulfill destiny/our future.

When I comfort individuals and immediate realms of nature (like an earthworm burning up on a sidewalk) I can be specific.  I don’t know that I can be specific about how I comfort humanity, spirit, or the future, but the resonance of my willingness to imagine how I might comfort them is probably comforting to those grand realities. Do imagine…it comforts angels, oceans, and your unborn great-grandchildren and their friends.

How were you comforted last year, over your life, by the Holy Nights, by nature, by spiritual beings, by the hope of the future? How did you comfort others?

PREPARATION

Cultivation as preparation relates to being made ready in the present for what we are about to receive or what we are about to give.  Gardeners cultivate soil to receive the seed and so it might give the seed the best circumstances and environment to germinate.

For our souls, preparation might be a question, an admonition, a request, an offer or a new perspective.  How have you been prepared to receive or to give? How do you prepare others to receive or to give?

CHALLENGE

Cultivation as challenge seems a great kindness to me. To challenge means to test the abilities, a test that cultivates takes an ability to the next level of talent, skill, and purpose.

When I am languishing, the opposite of flourishing, I need to be challenged. Challenged to grow, to move, to evolve, to sacrifice, to laugh, to dive deep and leap high, to fly with no net, to look for a star, to listen to angels.  Is it my thinking that is languishing? Or my feelings? Or my will to manifest?

A challenge is about meeting destiny, establishing meaning and manifesting purpose.

Make a list of 12 challenging ways a languishing soul can be cultivated? Four to challenge thinking,  four to challenge feeling and four to challenge will. Are these ways you need to be cultivated?  Are these ways you are willing to cultivate others?

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Cultivate everywhere and everything. Comfort. Prepare. Challenge. Make life a garden bursting with flowers to adorn your soul and the world.