Blooming Through the Muck
For Christmas, my 12-year-old, K., got a 3D printer. A few days ago, he asked me if I wanted something printed. I can make you pretty much anything you want, he said.
The first image that popped into my mind was a lotus flower.
I can make that, he assured me. He had four colors of filament on spools and apologized for the limited choices, but I was happy with red.
So I watched, through the glass window, the machine whir as the lotus emerged, one thin red layer at a time. It was still warm when K. placed it in my palms, and together, we marveled at how something can move from an idea into shape and form in just four hours time.
Holding it in my hands, I felt the familiar pull of the lotus metaphor. A reminder that transformation is not sudden or clean. It is layered, slow, and shaped by the conditions we emerge from. I didn’t explain why I chose a lotus, not to K. and not to myself at first. But the truth is, I have long been drawn to what the lotus represents: beauty that does not bypass difficulty, growth that requires depth, not escape.
Sometimes, I look to something outside of myself, like this symbol of the lotus, as a focal point. Pulling my energy toward it to access to aspects of self I've disconnected from.
There is a myth of Lakshmi, ascending from a churning, trash-filled ocean, on a lotus flower after darkness comes over the land. In her hand, she holds an elixir of eternal abundance, and it is made of kindness, light, and service.
The lotus, as it turns out, is not a symbol of purity in the way we often imagine. It rises from murky water, roots anchored in mud, blooming not in spite of that environment but because of it. It reminds me that when I show up “eh,” I’m missing moments so potentially wild and unexpected. It also reminds me that what I’ve lived through allows me to be of service in ways I couldn’t before.
We are all existing inside a nuanced mystery called life. Anyone who claims to feel at ease with that, I’d argue, is either lying or in denial. Nuance can destabilize. Mystery is challenging. Not knowing is hard, and yet it is the only place we ever truly live.
There is something wild about the lotus. Not necessarily this red, plastic one that is now home on my bedside table. But the flower itself. It’s ownership of the muck. It’s insistence on emergence. It’s aliveness somehow asserting that nuance is always more truthful than certainty or polarization, and that mystery is magic.
What brought me through my father’s death, the end of my marriage, and the closing of my decade-long relationship? How am I blooming today in ways I couldn’t have before? What parts of myself are finally able to rise, even when the water is murky and uncertain?
It’s dark outside, and I’m sitting at my writing desk in an oversized sweater. The Christmas tree in my room is lit up in its pink glow. There are two double-walled empty glasses of what was turmeric ginger tea and a half-full Hydroflask of watermelon-flavored electrolyte water in front of me. I’ve been going at this attempt for a post all day now, and my forehead is wrapped with a fuzzy warmth.
K. gets home from basketball practice, dropped off by his friend, pours a bowl of cereal and hops in the bath. It’s late, around 10pm. He is still warm from his bath when I tuck him into bed.
I’m working on my writing, I tell him.
Oh yeah, how’s it going? he asks.
I’m writing about the lotus flower you made for me.
Oh! That’s cool. Then he smiles. Let me know what else you want me to make for you, he says, his chin poked out of the covers. I see him lying there, this 12-year-old bundle of awesomeness and squishy love, and I honor silently how his little roots are working through their own muck these days. And yet, I’ve already seen so many glimpses of his bloom. I don’t have an answer for him yet, so I wish him sweet dreams with a kiss.
I’m back in my bed with my laptop considering the final sentence of this piece. I close my eyes and breathe into the hand I place over my heart space.
The muck is not shame, and emergence is not permission. It is simply what happens when I tend to my roots, honor my process, live in integrity and grace, and claim my life, one layer at a time.
