One of the great things about learning a second language is how you keep stumbling across words which are difficult to translate exactly into your first language. I find that doesn’t just expand my vocabulary, but it increases the ways I have to think about, and express, my experiences.
So, here’s a new word for me, and, if you don’t speak French, it’ll be a new word for you too – épanouissement.
I have a Larousse English-French dictionary app on my iPhone – here’s what it says about this word – “blooming”, “opening up”, “lighting up”, “fulfilment”, “self-fulfilment”.
Doesn’t that give you a nice, rich and deep range of ideas and concepts all at once? I love that.
When I took this photo yesterday, I was lucky to catch the bird stretching out its wings and then when I looked at the image on my computer I thought that the combination of the bird stretching out and the tree blossoming really conveyed one underlying phenomenon.
Isn’t this what Life does in the Universe?
Life emerges, expands, grows, matures, expresses itself.
Don’t each of us, as living beings, express ourselves to our fullness? And doesn’t a tree do that, a bird do that, just as you and I do that?
I wouldn’t claim to know what life is all about, but it seems to me that this Universe manifests itself through “épanouissement” – it opens up, it blooms, and it lights up the cosmos with a constant process of self-fulfilment.
Daily I become the most “me” I can become.
Daily the bird in the tree becomes the fullest expression of its unique life. Daily the tree grows from one form to another through the seasons, expressing the uniqueness of its own particular life.
I hope you enjoy both your own personal “épanouissement” today, as well as having the opportunity to enjoy that of some of the other lives around you.
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