The Rose Bud Yet to Open It is so important to find the right relationship between current and future.  For if you are too focused on the future, you will miss out on the joys and wonders of today, as well as the unexpected opportunities that will lead you, perhaps in a roundabout way, to what you are hoping for in the future.  You know that happiness and joy are in the moment, but you are concerned that if you live only now, focused here and completely here, without goals and an action plan that map out your future, that you will not build the foundation for a life of security and safety that you wish to have, where you are amply providing for yourself and your loved ones, protected from the storms of life that come. And yet, if your focus on the future is built on fear, then you carry that fear into your decisions and choices in this moment.  And fear is not your friend or a good advisor, for fear knows only the past. Now, within now, you must have courage.  You must be brave enough to be creative and try something new and different.  You must be brave enough to risk failure in order to rise to greater success.  If safety is your goal, you may find yourself in precarious circumstances, because you played it so safe that life marched right by you, bringing change and newness all around you, while you stood enshrouded in what was safe and secure in the past.  Every rose has its cycle, and the rose in full bloom right now, sending its perfume across the garden and displaying its full, mature beauty, will not last as long as the one that is only emerging in the bud with its glory still hidden from view. Being in this moment means having a deep connection with all that is, enough so that you can look at all of the rose buds yet to open and see through to the one with the greatest potential to be this summer's beauty.  Then, full of faith and a deep knowingness, you invest your time and effort on that emerging bud, even though everyone else wonders why you are not joining in the throng that is gazing in wonder at last summer's rose, now encased in plastic and on display, beginning to gather dust around the edges. This focus on the bud is not a denial of the future, for you hope that it will bring an exciting and financially successful future indeed.  It is a denial of the past, a refusal to stay with what worked before.  It is a brave quest to discover what will work now and in the future just emerging from now.  And as you do this, you will grow and learn, and you will be filled with courage and a great and growing love for this emerging rose. And if the bud you chose did not bring you all that you had hoped for, you have still grown and learned.  You have been made stronger and wiser.  And in the spring, when the roses begin to send out their sprouts and reach for the sun, you will have an even better and deeper connection to help you survey the field and find the new bud to connect with, deeply and in this moment, your tender and ever-renewing heart opening in love and courage, ready again to invest everything in that sweetly opening beauty, just now emerging. Here is a little prayer for today I am deeply centered within this moment.  I see around me the rose buds ready to open.  I set my thinking mind aside and go deeply into a meditative connection with each rose bud of my life, each creative idea, each new relationship, each inclination of my heart. I fill myself with the glowing energy of my formative and creative self.  I open my heart wide and let it fill with a deep love of life.  I fill my heart with courage and energy as I ready myself to begin again, willing to risk my love and my energy on the newness that is now springing forth. I am willing to invest my time and my love based on this deep knowing, vital and involved in what is now emerging around me. I am energy and power, courage and love.  I am.