Seeds and Growth

​A few years ago we had a dying tree in our front yard. As I stared out my window at this tree every day for months I felt as though the tree was trying to speak to me; not in a way where I heard voices but in feelings, thoughts, and ideas.

This tree inspired me and I felt the need to create art in a different way than I ever had before. It was daunting. It felt ill-timed and inconvenient. It wasn't clear what the outcome would be.

​As I forged my way into several new mediums it felt like I was rediscovering a part of myself that had been there all along but was dormant. The word dormant has many meanings but some that stood out to me were these. Suppression of activity; devoid of external activity; capable of being active. It made me think, what living things do we bury or suppress about ourselves? What living things inside of us simply need activation to bloom?

From the tree in my yard, there seemed to be a flow of inexpressible energy. The flow from something unknown brought things back to life that I thought were dormant within myself; things I didn't know I had within me. This flow, I realized is always there, sometimes in a strength you can feel more easily and sometimes barely trickling. But it's never really gone.

It's easy to think of our dormancy as a suspension period. Why aren't we finding life in our trees? Why aren't we finding more seeds? Where do they go in the winter of our lives and when will they start growing again? The dormancy, or inactivity of seeds, is often a time of protection, not suppression, from the environment. The life in the seed is not yet gone, but rather waiting to be cultivated by a more persuasive environment.

Seeds are all planted and cultivated at different rates and depths. Some are closer to the surface and get trampled on easily, stunting or diffusing their growth. Often the more protected the seed, the more beautiful, fragile, mystical, and powerful the plant can become.

​I am reminded of this when my husband's orchid bloomed this month. My husband is very patient when it comes to plants. He has been babying this plant for about two years, watering it and giving it the nourishment it needs. I on the other hand would have given up on this sucker after a few weeks. How long do they take to bloom? I have to do what to take care of it? Pass.

But after two years, look how beautiful it is. As we have watched it bloom over the past two weeks, each petal taking its own sweet time, I'm reminded again that sometimes beautiful things need more time to grow.

Is there a seed inside us all just waiting to be discovered? planted? or brought back to life again? What kind of nourishment does it need to become the plant it was meant to be? Sometimes nourishment can be as simple as more time to grow.

What kind of seed are you? You might think your seeds are gone, lost forever, or unaware that they were buried so deep inside of you. But that's the beauty of a seed. It's never too late to cultivate and nourish its growth. It might still be there waiting for the right time to bloom.

It is a Gift to have 'Time to Grow."