The Power of Innocence ©Lynne Buchanan
All Rights Reserved, Watermarked by Digimarc
The morning before I dropped my daughter and last child at college in New York City, I was taking a yoga class with her and this image from our recent trip to the Biltmore gardens in North Carolina came to mind. At the moment I saw it in my mind's eye during meditation, I sensed this chain of nurturing feminine energy that came from my grandmother through my mother to me and which I was now sending to her. I felt as if my bloom, as her mother, was fading away, as she is stepping into the full blossom of her life. Yet, at the same time, I felt the presence of my own mother and grandmother so strongly in the room with me. I knew that though our lives are changing and we are going in different directions, my daughter to college and me on a solo trip across the country, this supportive energy which comes through the lineage of the women in our lives endures all change. It gave me goosebumps and made the loss I am experiencing a little easier to bear.
When the time came to leave my daughter and I saw how comfortable and excited she was to be at college, I realized she is embarking on an amazing new phase that will enable her to discover and manifest her deepest dreams. It is at this point, when we stand on the brink of a new era in our lives that our dreams seem brightest. They are so powerful and pure because our critical voices and the way little discouragements along the way chip at our hopes have not tainted our dreams yet–everything seems possible. I am sure I have not always been the most perfect mother, no one is, but the one thing I have always done is try to nurture my three children in a way that helped reveal their talents so they could follow their dreams. The greatest gifts I have received in life have been watching them do just this. Now it is time for my presence in my children's lives to recede a bit, as they evolve more and more into their own unique beings.
Yet, this does not mean I need to wilt. Instead, it is time from me to discover and manifest my own dreams, the ones that have lain dormant for twenty-three years as I dedicated my life to nurturing the dreams of others. In a little more than twenty-four hours, I will set off on a solo three month journey across the United States to discover whether the nest is really empty. I am hopeful that during this trip I will come to know my true self better and discover how I can be of more service to the planet, as I see and feel both the beauty and the destruction of the earth. The latter has been painfully apparent to me in the past few days from the news coverage of fires in Yosemite, one of my destinations on the west coast and a national treasure. The ravishing effects of climate change have made me realize the timeliness of my journey and the importance of co-creating images that express the sublimity of nature.
I invite you to join me on this journey by checking my posts here and on my Facebook page–Lynne Buchanan Photography. Perhaps what I see and express through my photographs and words will spark some memory in you that brings you home to yourself or reminds you of the power of dreams. You also may have suggestions of places for me to visit, places that touched your heart deeply and which you would like to see now but can't get there at the moment. Comments are always welcome on all sites. Dream on, remember gratitude, and never lose the innocence of being in the moment. These are our greatest strengths, the source of true change, and the only hope for the future of the earth.
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