Lessons From Nature

Have you ever planted a seed and seen it grow? Whether you're an avid master organic vegetable gardener or you're remembering back some bean sprout class project from elementary school, hopefully you've at some time in your life observed a plant grow. It's magical.

You stick this teensy eeensy tinsey speck of nothing into dirt. So long as it gets the water and sunshine it needs, a couple weeks (or so) later, these wee little leaves suddenly push up toward the sky. If all goes well, it eventually becomes the squash, or basil, or marigold, or tomato plant it was meant to be.

Before you get that first new leaf though, there is darkness. There is uncertainty. It is dirty.

The question is how to get from buried in the deep to basking in the sunshine and growing.

Some seeds just hang out in the dark dirt and go nowhere.  Those are the ones that are not becoming what they are meant to be.

Growth takes a few things: water, soil nutrients, and sunshine, sure. But it also takes some energy. Some work. Ultimately, while the seed can be nourished (whether by nature or an attentive gardener or both), no one can MAKE it grow. That part is up to the seed.

If you feel like you're trapped, and in the dark, in the muck, feeling alone, take a lesson from these seeds. You can thrive and grow, no matter how hard things may seem right now. Get some support; get that nourishment – that water, that sunshine, those nutrients – and use it to grow, and become who you are.