My seed catalogs have started to arrive in the mail. The glossy summer-bright photos are inspiring and awe-inducing (Moon and Stars Melons! Nebraska Wedding Tomatoes!), and also humbling. Each packet of seeds contains worlds of potential What in this universe holds more promise than a seed? Each tiny package is a life in stasis. Every seed on this planet contains knowledge: knowledge of self, knowledge of its needs and its future. A seed knows not to grow until it has been placed in the proper environment. Each seed knows when to allow itself to break apart and become something else, stretching toward the sun's light and the future.

    Every seed is aware of its purpose. It knows why it was placed in this world and what it needs to do to achieve that  purpose. We are not so fortunate. We lack the inner instruction manual that seeds possess. All too often we feel as though we are floundering, struggling to break out of our confines and grow into the Self we are meant to be.

     Like a handful of seeds, we are brimming with potential. We are given an empty furrow to plant with opportunity. We are free to choose our experiences, to sow possibility. When it comes time to reap what we sow, however, we often find our hands empty. The harvest we expected didn't manifest, either due to circumstance or fault; or the results were far less substantial than expected, and instead of baskets bursting with success we are forced to glean what we can among the weeds of our intentions.

    There is so much we can learn from a seed's patience and will. A seed can wait. It bides its time until it knows the time is Now. It doesn't rush, but grows according to it's needs and surroundings. Once a seed has decided to grow, however, there is no stopping it. Its sole intent is to break free, to expand, to become. A seed's will is unstoppable. You cannot make a seed stop growing. You can kill it through neglect or force, but until that moment it will struggle to achieve its aim, to become the Self that seed knows itself to be.

    We humans do not take to adversity as well as seeds do. There is a select few of the billions of us on this earth that are able to stay the course regardless of the obstacles in their way, but so many of our kind find the furrow strewn with boulders. Instead of growing straight toward the sun we must turn from our planned path and take another, and often another again. Along the way are naysayers whose words are weeds, blocking sunlight and choking our roots with their own intentions. We can fight, and struggle onward, exhausted, as a seed will do, or we can allow ourselves to stop. We can choose to stop growing. Sometimes that seems like the only logical choice. You're working so hard, and for what? Success is nowhere in sight. Or you have no idea what success even looks like. Why, exactly, did you start this journey? There is no fault in choosing this easier path. You, we, don't have to grow and blossom. But if you are anything like me, you wake up one morning and realize that it is time for a change. The safe shell that holds you is no longer enough, and like it or not, it is time to break free, and so we restart the growing cycle that first began years before. There may be even more weeds choking the path this time - family, work, other commitments - or perhaps the time has come because the way has finally cleared. Whatever the reason, as you grow, do so with a seed's purpose and intent. Allow a seed and its strength to be your guide.

     Today, take a seed in your hand. It is a universe unto itself. It knows things about the world that we are unable to even imagine. It understands the world and its place in it in a manner we cannot begin to comprehend. We may have an idea of what we want to do. We may feel that we know who we want to be. Rarely are we completely sure. That small bundle lying on your palm is. It has no doubts, no questions, no hesitations. That tiny seed, so fragile and so easily crushed into dust, knows no fear.

     Fearless, it will break,it will grow, it will Become. As will you.

 (Photo by Joseph Peterson)