"The last twenty years or so, spiritual/new age authors have sent this message
to readers: "You have something broken about you and I can fix it."

Now a newer, truer message must be heard: "You are here to deliver a beautiful gift to
the world - and it's a gift that benefits everyone. Remember it, and get on with it."

FLOWERING, UNFOLDING, EVOLVING - these are the words that the angels used when they defined this eleventh principle.

From The Invisible Garment:

Unfolding/flowering is the evolutionary drive. It is that aspect of life that impels humans to experience themselves in higher and higher states consciousness. It is imprinted in the atom.

Biologist Bruce Lipton claims that humans are components of the nervous system of Gaia (our planetary body.) As we populate the earth more densely, the nervous system becomes more sophisticated and the potential for higher levels intelligence increases. While overpopulation may be our downfall, it may also be the catalyst that evokes an evolutionary shift. (Having said that, I still think birth control is a good idea.)

Evolutionary shifts have, of course, occurred before because the intelligence of an organism outgrows its form. A few billion years ago, when single cells learned to divide and reproduce themselves without benefit of any parasitic medium, a big shift occurred. Later, when single cells learned to link up with each other and specialize their functions, creating multi-celled organisms, such a shift occurred. On and on the story goes. Each time the intelligence system within an organism has reached a doorway of more complexity than the organism needs, there has been a shift.

It appears that humans have now reached such a doorway, and perhaps for the first time in the evolution of the planet, we will cross that threshold and experience the shift while fully awake, fully aware, fully engaged in the process.

Flowering is the spiritual principle that delivers us to this doorway, and will escort us across to the other side. As individuals, and as a species, we might compare ourselves to a rose bud. We are petals inside the bud. Our world is familiar and limiting. Our beliefs, our religions, our families, our careers - all these systems in which we live hold us in very tight restrictions, even if we think we're liberated from all that. Pretty soon, however, that bud is going to break and we're going to bloom. As the human flower begins to unfold, we'll experience life as differently as the rose must when it bursts through its womb-bud.

This analogy projects the principle of Flowering into the future. As with all analogies, it is imperfect. Everyone, but especially people who have Flowering in their invisible garments, experiences growing and evolving incrementally on a daily basis, in the present. We constantly magnetize experiences and thought forms that pull us toward newness. That aspect of the energy of evolution is what I want to talk about right now.

If you have Flowering in your invisible garment, you took on the "job" of helping to transform our species. For example, here is what The Invisible Garment says about Flowering as the ascendant principle:

Ascendant in Flowering
A part of your job in this incarnation is to evolve the ethical field of the human. Of course, first you must do that for and within yourself. WE no longer can afford to live in an "eye for an eye" mentality, nor can our species survive if we continue to live in separatist mentality. You are here to work toward understanding the unity of all things. You must learn to examine the consequences of each of your actions - indeed each of your thoughts. And you must realize that those consequences affect not only you, but all the other dynamics as well: your family, your friends, your community, the planet, the animals and plants, the ecology - indeed the universe. It is an enormous honor to be one of the beings creating the morphic field of high ethical standards on which future societies will live. It is also difficult, because you are treading new territory.

The last sentence of that statement is key. In counseling with people who have Flowering in their garments, I've seen what a profound burden this principle can place on people who don't fully understand it. In fact, until you understand it, Flowering feels like insanity. You feel the pull to think globally, while school teachers demand that you think linearly. You feel the urge to behave as if your every effort matters, while peers encourage you to engage in covert activities. You long to be open, wild, visible, and authentic, while parents and authority figures demand that you adhere to strict rules of behavior. It can be very confusing.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, arguably one of the most important musicians and outrageous characters who ever lived, had his ascendant and his Uranus in Flowering. Every student of Mozart knows that he experienced some inner tortures that drove his creative impulses, and that he behaved in ways that flagrantly flew in the face of social tradition at the time. I expect that this double contract with Flowering influenced many of his choices. With an ascendant in Flowering, he could not make decisions based on social mores. His imperative was to make choices according to his own authority. With his Uranus in Flowering, we know that he only experienced his own authenticity in moments of absolute truth. Thanks to Mozart, music evolved. His gift to the world unfolded. His authenticity, even though it may have created personal pain for him, pushed the boundaries of human consciousness.

While few of us will leave a legacy as large as Mozart's, all of us carry a part of the imperative to be authentic. Our invisible garments never stop urging us to be authentic. Indeed, if every person simply allowed his or her principles to be the driving forces in their incarnation, we would live in peace and we would witness life-miracles on a daily basis.

If you have Flowering in your chart, you need to keep in mind your two key words: courage and yes.

You'll often be asked by your physical body, your mind, your emotions, and your heart to take risks and make shifts. You'll need courage to make those changes, courage to be different, and courage to let yourself unfold/flower. You've agreed to a relatively formidable task. And you know you're up to it, don't you? So just step out to the end of the diving board and dive.

Saying yes to these tasks will be your imperative. Can you imagine the pain a caterpillar might experience by trying to say "no" to the idea of the cocoon? The caterpillar MUST transform. So must you. Say yes, and let yourself become the butterfly.

A dear friend of mine has Flowering in her chart a couple of times. She was raised, as was I, in a community where "good girls" behaved according to a set of very strict rules. The urgency to break out of that box of rules (encouraged by Flowering), and the desperation to be "liked" (which is the implied promised reward if you stay within the box) raged battle in her life for many years. Every time she said "no" to transformation, she paid a severe price (her body would break down), but living within the rules felt like prison - no life at all. When she tried to talk to therapists about the battle, they offered her drugs and hinted that she was "borderline." Eventually, she took the drugs and lost touch with reality altogether. However, Flowering won. She finally, even in the midst of the drug-imposed psychosis, remembered her authentic self and determined a path of sanity would be her only path. She's "well" now, although not exactly operating within the social rules of her culture. She has transformed into the butterfly because she said "yes."

If you have Flowering, have the courage to say yes. If you don't, have the guts to help those who do say yes. The sanity of our species and the unfolding of our potential are at stake.

One of the many benefits of this work is that it gives you a vocabulary and therefore a framework for understanding people who are "different." Take a moment to think about someone you know or have known who just always walked a singular path. Remember someone in your past that didn't fit with the "group." That person may have had Flowering in his or her contract in a very important position - like the sun or moon position. He or she may be contributing vastly to the shift of our world into one that allows for diversity and radical difference. Your compassion toward that person may be the flow of energy - the tipping point - that allows that shift to occur. Even if you didn't have compassion "back in the day" when you knew that person, have it now. Time is just an illusion, anyway. Have the courage to say "yes" to Flowering, in yourself and in others. Then we'll experience happiness.

© Connie Kaplan, 2006