The seeds of life

You know the saying, everything happens for a reason?! I’ve never liked it. It always felt like a terrible thing to say to someone who is going through something. It felt like an excuse or a denial of what someone was experiencing. I try not to say it because of my own discomfort, but as much as I dislike it, I think its pretty accurate. Which to be honest, pisses me off so I’m going to change it up a bit.

There is a lesson to be discovered in every experience. And in that lesson, is an opportunity for growth. Each experience is a seed that will eventually become next seasons garden.

The key here is the word opportunity. No experience inherently causes growth. The choice has to be made, action has to be taken, to allow growth to happen. Everything does happen for a reason but we do not always have the opportunity to learn and grow from every moment. Sometimes moments come and go so quickly that they are missed. But the universe works in tricky and mysterious ways. If a lesson is missed the first go around, I am positive that another chance to catch the lesson will soon arrive.

That is the beauty of this messy life. Every moment is an opportunity. But we do not have to exhaust ourselves making an opportunity out of every moment. Some seasons of life are simply meant to be lived. Growth cannot be continuous. Seasons of rest and recovery are necessary between growth spurts. Just look at nature, no garden is continually productive.

That being said, seeds will continue to appear in the right moment to allow the opportunity for something to sprout. If we resist this, we will feel as if we are stuck in a constant state of almost becoming. The point right before the seed cracks open to reveal the first stage of growth. As if everything is about to happen but nothing ever does. It takes a lot of courage for a seed to sprout. Courage and faith. We don’t necessarily know what will happen once the seed cracks open. But if nature can be our guide, a seed eventually grows into a plant for the purpose of creating new seeds. A seed that holds the potential of the growth of the next season in life.

This is the cycle that feels so poignant to me right now. If we do not allow ourselves to move from seed to sprout to blooming plant and fully return to a seed, then we cannot allow the growth of the next season to have an opportunity. Everything does happen for a reason. Each experience can be seen as a practice test for the next one coming around the corner. Without one experience, we may not hold the knowledge to complete the next task. An experience will arise yet we will not have an opportunity to grow.

I’m not sure if we ever know what moments in our lives are seeds that will flourish into a full garden and become the next seeds we must tend to. Often we cannot bear witness to the moments that have helped us evolve until we have moved through a few of these seed to sprout to garden to seed cycles. Hindsight can help us see what seeds needed to crack open to reveal the lessons that move us forward.

I think there is beauty in this process that is unparalleled by much in life. The fact that one word, one chance encounter, a minute of a day or even one inconsequential decision can become the seed that leads to so much. So many times I have tried to pinpoint the first seed that cracked open to get me to where I am. I desperately want to know where my growth began. A part of me feels as though if I can find that first seed, I can tell my story with more clarity. But in all my seeking and reflecting, I simply find more and more seeds.

I can link every seed that has furthered my growth to a garden or even a single bloom. And in reflecting, I always find that the seed of that very bloom was created by yet another seed. I am slowly understanding that it is impossible to find the beginning of growth. Because growth always arrives via a tiny and unassuming seed and every seed has a story of how it was formed. This is part of the great mystery of life. This is the idea that everything happens for a reason even if it is beyond our field of vision.

Lately it has felt as if many of the seeds I have collected over the past few years suddenly cracked open in unison and began to grow into a beautiful garden. As if seeds that I had long given up on decided to finally soften and open. I have no idea why or how the universe works in such magical ways, but I am in complete awe. It feels as if puzzle pieces are clicking together rapidly in my life in oddly satisfying ways.

This time feels so poignant as it is arriving during the season of the last harvest. A time of gathering the last abundance of the growing season and beginning preparations for winter. We harvest the last of the foods produced in our garden this time of year but also all the seeds. The precious seeds that will become the next garden when spring arrives. Seeds that will quietly hold their potential within all winter, waiting for the opportunity to begin to grow.

Life is beautiful in so many ways. When I begin to honor all the cycles of seeds, the experiences that held opportunities, I cant help but be reminded. Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes it just takes time to discover what each seed will become.