"This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver."
Friedrich Nietzsche
Today on my walk I was struck by the beauty of these cactus blossoms and then by the volume of spikes surround them. I thought all the way home about why cacti have spikes. What exactly are they protecting? Why don't we have spikes?
From researching I learned that the stem and crown of the cactus is its most vulnerable part. It's responsible for moving, storing and processing water and all of its photosynthetic actions used to convert light into food. The flowers of cacti are how they reproduce and imperative to their growth and survival.
On my walk, I kept thinking about the little budding ideas I have in my mind and about how part of me wants to share them with everyone. I have this desire to give away my very best treasures to the world almost even before I can understand them. Sometimes I give them to benign creatures who give them back or advise me to hold onto them and help me grow them. Other times I've given my precious infant concepts to people who put a cloak of negativity around them before they are even fully formed that often impairs or diseases them before they have a chance to produce. Have you determined who in your world is "safe" to share ideas with and who continually damps them down?
If, like a cactus blossom, your budding ideas are imperative to your survival and what you produce in the world, are you careful to guard who you share them with and when? It's time to find your safe people. God did not give us spikes to protect our thoughts and new treasures but he did give us boundaries. I am learning about how to use boundaries kindly, not as a defense against others but more as an offense to allow budding life to grow.
The cactus flower also requires bats and birds to help its pollen move from one part of the plant to another to fully fertilize. So we too at times need helpful others to move our ideas forward. Part of the wisdom I'm trying to learn is when to keep psychological spikes around my vulnerable new growth and when to let others in.
The cactus spikes protect against predators who want to eat its stem and flowers and sabotage its growth but they allow birds and bats to still seek its nectar. Holding our ideas firmly but with an openness that doesn't suffocate and allows the right others in, is a balance. But if we glean from nature, few plants or animals are completely defenseless. Nor are we meant to be.
When you have new ideas, picture the cactus then challenge yourself to become the best protector and grower you can. Just because we weren't given spikes doesn't mean we aren't meant to foster our creative growth. I believe humans were given choices and boundaries, rather than spikes so we'll learn to be discerning.
Some believe you should greet life with a closed fist and protect and fight and hold tight to what's yours, others meet life with an open palm, defenseless, unprotected and yielding to anyone or thing that comes along. There is a time for both, but I offer up the suggestion of the visual of spines, more like a half-open hand that can both protect and be open to the world and pollinators at the right moment.
