.jpg)
What the Sunflower Knows
- Nontando Mahlangu
- Mar 25
- 7 min read
Updated: Apr 23
On turning toward the light, the window that changes everything, and why this space exists
Hold space for yourself today, lovely. This one is for the beginning. Read it slowly.
Greetings, Lovely
Welcome to Hold Space Today.
I'm Nontando, a sunflower girl. The holder of space. The inner child advocate. The voice within and behind this space.
I'm inviting you to hold space today. For your heart. For your joy. For your soul. For your [BE]ing in wholeness.
This is why I welcome you to the Held Space—a place to begin your own journey of turning toward what nourishes you.
Welcome to the Held Space.
At heart, I am an affirmer. An affirmative reminder, actually. Advocating for your joy, your divine light, your essence, your life force.
I believe in your well-being as you experience this life and the many pathways within the journey. I am a guide and support in what lights up your heart, your world, and a reminder of that flame. Whether it's igniting it, reigniting it, or simply keeping it going, the mandate is this: never dim it for anything or for anybody.
It is your life force.
The Sunflower: A Catalyst
If you've known me long and deeply enough, you'll know I've always been fond of the colour yellow and the sunflower. For as long as I can remember, I have always seen myself standing in a vast field of sunflowers. I imagined basking in the gentle warmth of the morning sun, breathing in their delicate, soft fragrance as I whimsically walked and weaved through, feeling an overwhelming sense of bliss. For a while, I put aside that promise to myself, life kept moving and just happening, and I let the dream slip. But eventually, I made space to honour it. When I finally stepped into that sunflower field, it was a moment filled with pure magic and joy, a memory that will remain with me always.
The sunflower shows up in such a beautiful way within nature and holds space for the pollinators, the majestic bees, and that has just stayed with me. I thrive within nature. I love being in the early morning sun and gazing at the sunset. It just feels like a steady but gentle warm embrace.
There's a word I came across around the biological nature and rhythm of the sunflower.
Heliotropism.
From the Greek: helios means sun. Tropos means to turn.
It is the name given to one of nature's most quietly extraordinary behaviours. A biological fact so beautiful it reads like poetry. And once you sit with what it really means, not just the science but the full, living, breathing act of it, I think something within you will recognise it.
Because this is not just something sunflowers do.
The concept of turning towards the light is not unique to sunflowers. Your soul, too, already knows how.
What the Science Tells Us
Young sunflowers track the sun.
From east to west, across the full arc of the sky, every single day. Driven by an internal circadian rhythm so precise that it grows one side of their stem faster than the other to physically create the turn. They are not passive in this. They are not simply sitting in the warmth and hoping for the best. They are actively positioning toward the light, continuously, deliberately, with the full biological intelligence of their being, to maximize how much nourishment they can absorb.
The turning is not accidental.
The turning is the whole intentional practice of their being.
And then, and this is the detail that stopped me completely, while we sleep, while the night is at its darkest and the sun is nowhere to be found, the sunflower quietly turns itself back to face east.
Not because the sun is there.
But because it will be.
It doesn't wait to be found by the light. It doesn't lie dormant until morning arrives and proves itself worthy of a response. It prepares, in the dark, in the quiet, in the absence of any evidence that the light is coming, to meet it.
Every morning, before sunrise, the sunflower is already facing the place where the light will arrive.
Every morning, without fail, without negotiation, without questioning whether it deserves another day of turning, it is ready.
What the beauty of the Turning Gives
There is one more layer worth holding.
The sunflower's daily practice of heliotropism doesn't only feed itself.
As it turns, it warms its own face, and that warmth draws in pollinators, sustains ecosystems, and gives life far beyond itself. The act of absorbing nourishment becomes, quietly and naturally, an act of giving. The sunflower doesn't choose between filling itself up and serving.
The filling up is the service.
What it absorbs in the morning shapes what it radiates through the day.
Your own turning toward the light, your own daily act of meeting yourself with honesty and nourishment before the world begins, is never only for you. The version of you who walks into your day after coming home to yourself is different from the one who doesn't. Fuller. Steadier. In flow. More genuinely present for the people and the work that needs you.
Your filling up is never just for you. It becomes a reflective light for others.
"The light in me sees and honours the light in you."
The Stillness of Maturity
And then, once the sunflower reaches full maturity, the heliotropism stops.
Not because the light stops mattering. Not because the sun has stopped being the source of everything. But because, after a full season of daily turning, the sunflower no longer needs to search for its orientation. It has found it. It settles, quietly, with complete certainty, facing east. Toward the direction of first light. Toward the place where the morning always begins.
Rooted.
Grounded.
Certain.
In stillness.
Maturity, in the sunflower's language, is not restlessness or constant seeking. It is not waking every morning unsure of which way to face. It is not the exhausting labour of perpetual recalibration.
Maturity is arrival.
It is intuitive, without having to search, where your light comes from.
Why I Started This Practice
The why in it all.
I yearned to show up differently, to be present in daily moments, holding space for myself as a way to get grounded and truly meet myself—to really see her, me. Into the depths of my soul. Because, honey, you can easily get swayed into other people's worlds and paths in the name of helping and the need to be needed.
Listen: your world and your being need you to be present.
Minding your own business. Your soul's business.
The sunflower doesn't abandon its own turning to help another flower face the sun. It turns for itself, and in doing so, creates warmth for everything around it.
I had to learn that.
I am still learning.
This space exists because I needed it first.
The Window
Now, picture a window.
Not just any window. Your window.
The one you stand at, or could stand at, in the morning before the day begins. Before the notifications. Before the to-do list. Before anyone arrives with their needs, their urgency, and their very reasonable claims on your time and attention.
There is a moment, every morning, that exists in the space before all of that. A threshold. A moment that belongs entirely to you, if you choose to allow yourself to embrace it.
Light comes through that window.
Soft at first. Honey-toned. The kind of light that doesn't demand anything of you yet, that simply arrives and waits, the way a very good friend waits, without pressure, without agenda, without needing you to be more than you are.
The window of hope, of a new day, brings fresh, crisp air and beautiful, warm sunshine, with birds chirping to meet you.
That window is not a decoration.
It is an invitation.
This window is like turning towards your own light, as sunflowers do. Each morning, you have the choice to intentionally align with what nurtures your spirit before the world’s demands begin.
The window is where Hold Space Today begins.
The Practice
This isn’t just a philosophy; it’s a daily practice of intentional presence, mirroring the sunflower’s turning.
And like the sunflower's turning, it works best when it is daily. Small. Unspectacular, even. The quiet power of it is not in any single morning but in the accumulated act of returning, again and again, imperfectly and honestly, to the same question:
“Hold Space Today, Lovely.”
The sunflower doesn't ask whether it deserves the sun.
It doesn't negotiate with the morning.
It doesn't wait until it has fixed everything from yesterday before it allows itself to orient toward what nourishes it.
It simply turns each day, as often as needed.
And so can you.
The Held Space
I'm not writing from the outside of anything.
I'm writing from inside it. Mid-way, finding my footing. Some days the practice feels natural. Other days I forget entirely.
What I do know is this: holding space for yourself begins with how you speak to yourself. It begins with recognition. The quiet, radical act of saying "Hi lovely. I see you. I'm with you."
The light is already there. You just have to be willing to turn toward it.
The Invitation
So here's my invitation to you, lovely.
Turn toward yourself today and hold space for your well-being.
Not because you've earned it. Not because you've fixed everything (because there’s really nothing to fix but rather to shift, alchemize in flow and rhythm towards your light, your joy, the gimmer moments). Not because you're finally ready.
But because, like the sunflower, you were built for this. Your soul already knows how to orient toward light. It's just been a while since anyone reminded you.
Consider this your reminder.
Open the window, let yourself in, Lovely x
Hold space today, lovely.
References
The science of sunflower heliotropism:
Atamian, H.S., Creux, N.M., Brown, E.A., Garner, A.G., Blackman, B.K., & Harmer, S.L. (2016). Circadian regulation of sunflower heliotropism, floral orientation, and pollinator visits. Science, 353(6299), 587-590.
Vandenbrink, J.P., Brown, E.A., Harmer, S.L., & Blackman, B.K. (2014). Turning heads: The biology of solar tracking in sunflower. Plant Science, 224, 20-26.
Kutschera, U., & Briggs, W.R. (2016). Phototropic solar tracking in sunflower plants: An integrative perspective. Annals of Botany, 117(1), 1-8.
Brooks, C.J., Atamian, H.S., & Harmer, S.L. (2023). Multiple light signaling pathways control solar tracking in sunflowers. PLOS Biology, 21(10), e3002344.
Comments