BJKCE – it is my favorite group of letters. It stands for what I most believe in – beauty, joy, kindness, compassion and empowerment. BJKCE sounds strong and gentle all at the same time. It can be said like a mother calling her children in to dinner at the end of a long summer day. It can be said in a whisper like a mysterious secret too rich to be shared out loud. It is enough for me to live on. It is enough for me to thrive on. It is what I wish to share with the world. The idea for Cindy-Kay was created over several years with the intention of providing beauty and joy to as many people as possible.
My grandmother and then my mother gave me a green thumb and love for flowers. I remember planting seeds of flowers and vegetables in our huge country garden. My family grew up in farming families. The thought of a small garden was never considered. It was big because it should be. Because that was the way it was done.
We didn’t live on a farm. We did live out in a country subdivision, if one could call it that. We had several acres of lawn that took hours to cut and lots of trees, bushes and of course, flowers and vegetables. My favorite flowers to plant were sweetpeas. I liked that they were a mix of flowers and vegetable. It represented early on who I would become. I am an “and” girl. I do not like to be presented with choices of this “or” that. I see no reason why the choice can’t be this “and” that. So, sweetpeas were the perfect flower for me. It grows with tendrils and attaches itself to whatever it can find to climb, like vegetable peas too. Yet, the flowers are so beautiful, delicate and pleasing to view. And the fragrance. It has beauty and fragrance and so much more.
Flowers have represented beauty from early times. In Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, his thoughts on flowers and beauty resonnated with me.
Seeing beauty in a flower could awaken humans, however briefly, to the beauty that is an essential part of their own innermost being, their true nature.
To think that we are by nature beautiful, is to fill me with such joy, such encouraging affirmation that this is true. It is what we try to teach our children and what we try to tell ourselves as we look in the mirror and as we build confidence in our kids and ourselves. We are beautiful. We have always been beautiful. And we will always be beautiful. Flowers have a way of reminding us of that.
To see flowers in nature reminds us of the goodness in the world. To bring flowers inside our home reminds us that beauty is all around and beauty can follow us. We need to tuck reminders of beauty in places we see every day, as suggestions, as reminders.
When we see these reminders, it will fill us with surprise, delight and joy. My sister used to, and I believe still does, tuck twenty dollar bills in pants pockets, coat pockets, literally any pocket. Her goal is to surprise and delight herself later. Sometimes it is seasons later. Regardless of the time that has passed since she tucked it away, when she finds it and pulls it out, it never fails to deliver joy and delight.
Flowers do this for us. At any time we see them, they deliver joy and delight. What brings you joy and delight? Is it your morning coffee and newspaper? Is it witnessing a sunrise or sunset? Is it the sound of your spouse’s or your child’s laughter? Mementos of these things allow us to carry joy and delight with us, and to bring it out when needed. For me, flowers are symbolic of joy and delight.
I love tulips and sunflowers the most, followed by lavender, moss roses, castor beans, morning glory, hyacinths, daisies, mums and the list goes on and on. Flowers that become translucent as the sun moves through them are indeed my favorite. It is like they are allowing us into their innermost being and allowing us to experience and take some of their beauty with them. That brings me great joy.
Joy is a decision.
It has been said that like love, joy is a decision. We may have fleeting moments of profound joy, but we can have joy every day if we choose it. Like how we set the temperature in our homes on a thermostat, we can set the emotion of our lives to joy. That becomes our baseline, and the other emotions we experience rise and fall from that baseline of joy. Imagine starting and ending each day with joy and rising above it from time to time. That sounds like an incredible way to live. And, it is possible.
Joy can be described as jubilation, triumph, great feelings of happiness. It is like the gold star of happiness. It seems like beauty is easier to experience because it is something we can see, while joy is something we feel. It seems like we are hesitant to be joyful, other than during the holidays. And I’m not really sure why.
What I’ve learned is that we get to decide. We get to decide every day if we want to be joyful. Then the events of our day are framed in joy. How can things be terrible when that’s where we start? Sometimes we need to reset ourselves and get back to joy as our starting point and take on the day from there. The beauty that we see is that much more beautiful, and the great experiences are even that much more meaningful. Beauty brings us joy.
My goal with the sacchettos is to offer beauty that brings you joy. Beauty that you tuck into your bag and can touch or bring out and experience joy. Take a look and see what it brings to you.