Passion Flowers

 My entire life, it seems like I've been made to feel guilty for my gusto.
When I am particularly "on fire" for something, it's inevitable that someone will make a negative comment on my feistiness regarding said subject or cause, and trust me, there are lots of them:

The special needs population (intellectual and physical disabilities)
poverty, sexism, gay rights, military personnel, animal rights, animal rescue, ecological preservation, (this list can go on, and on, and on...)


 People that feel deeply are used to being told how "sensitive" they are.

Passion Flower work-in-progress

It's perceived to be a bad thing. But think about it, most often when people are chiding someone for being sensitive, it's a way of dismissing the "sensitive" person's feelings or reactions to justify their own actions or to subdue the "sensitive" person.
Any time someone criticizes (or praises!) someone else, it's usually their shit that they are addressing.

 Therefore, I don't bristle (too much) anymore when someone comments on how sensitive I am or how focused I can get on something. Most of the time, I take it as a compliment.

 But just yesterday, insights on my facebook page  told me that someone took the time to
 click "hide all posts" after I shared this photo and link.

Driving with Colleen

So, um, whoever did that... really?

Seriously?

I'm still posting fundraiser things in memory of someone's dead mother to help cancer patients.

I do not care if you like it. It's my page, and you are a stick-in-the-mud. 

 I post all kinds of stuff on my art page that isn't exactly my art, but it's all stuff that I'm passionate about. Because that's what my art is about. 

 I am also able to be a passion empath. I can take the energy of someone else and amplify it into something even brighter and louder.

I am able to share my knowledge and help their passion and enthusiasm make it out into the world. I am proud to be passionate about something that totally deserves to be lauded and have the ever-loving light shared out of it.

There's a reason your heart skips a beat when you come upon an awesome inspiration.

You were meant to live your passion.

I came across wild passion flowers on my trail run one morning and was so overcome by them I had to stop and marvel at their strange beauty.

While the name comes from Christian missionaries, I feel the untamed coronal filaments mimic actual human passion so well. They can curl and crawl every which way but they radiate out from the center and work to nourish the flower as a whole organism. 

Passion flowers have been used as a calming remedy in folk medicine. For the creative, getting into your “flow” does just that. Chasing your passion actually is a kind of zen.

Look for your passion flower. Let it drive you to great things. It will bloom where you are needed.

Passion Flower

Yes, passion can be a messy business.

It's a sloppy, wet thing that's taxing and sometimes crude, but sometimes it's the only thing that keeps us going. 

Passion changes the world.

What's yours?