Watch A Seed Grow
Yesterday I arrived at my residency retreat space: a beautiful, contemporary house with my own set of rooms, a shared kitchen and living area and an expansive view of rolling hills. The other two retreatees are women who, like me, come out of their hidey-holes for nourishment and a small dose of small talk. They are surprisingly comfortable to be around. We touch lightly on why we are here without pushing too hard at the boundaries of the quiet dreams we hold and what we want to accomplish away from our everyday lives.
Kristen, a writer, intimidates me a bit. She is a real writer, with degrees and books and knowledge. I am a little embarrassed to tell her I’m also writing- working on restarting a blog that I only wrote three posts for last year and then abandoned.
“What’s the name?” She asks.
“Watch a seed grow,” I answer, conscious that it’s a weird name for a blog that has little to do with plants (other than I love them).
I need to explain the name, of course, which is hard. Where to start?
Do I start with what it means now? Where it began? How I use it in my everyday life?
Watch a seed grow. Just four simple words, a mantra, if you will. What I love about these words is that their meaning can evolve to fit life just where it is. I came upon a similar phrase about 8 years ago, when my life was going through a great transition. One of my daughters was struggling with an illness and was not thriving in school, so we pulled her out and started homeschooling. Worrying, as I am apt to do, about her social life, I reached out to any homeschooling family I could find, hoping to find a community. I ended up on a group email list for homeschooling families in the area. Amongst those listed one email address stood out. It was very similar to watch a seed grow and I thought, “I’m going to be friends with that person” - not a normal thought for my usually reticent self! But friends we were, immediately, dearly, no holds barred.
After a while I told her, noting that I sounded a bit psycho, “I knew we were going to be friends even before we met, you know… because of your email address.”
“Really!?” She exclaimed with her usual verve. She loved that a connection was made, even before meeting in real life, and we discussed the phrase, how she came up with it and what it meant to her…. something about taking it all in, something about slowing down enough to notice small changes, something about being instead of doing…
Yes, I thought.
“Can I use it?” I asked, not fully knowing what I meant.
“Sure!” she said, also not knowing what I meant.
So, I rolled the phrase around in my mind, on the many sleepless nights, on the repetitive walks with my dog, when I was feeling joyful, when I was upset, trying out variations until it untangled itself into what you read today, fusing it into my being, not unlike the chant of the Hare Krishnas.
Watch a seed grow. To step back from active parenting and observe the miracle that is our children as they become and become and become again. Watch a seed grow. To release ourselves from striving (to please our parents, the over-culture, ourselves) and just be. Watch a seed grow. To reach our own potential effortlessly and inevitably. Watch a seed grow. To see the miraculous in the mundane, the extraordinary in the ordinary. Watch a seed grow. To understand that it is through our attention that something becomes sacred.
Simple words that keep me in touch with my values, with who I am as a human occupying space in this world, with the potential, like everyone else, for growth, change, blossoming, as well as aging, death and decay. Watch a seed grow and carry on …
