“I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, but I have great faith in a seed. Convince me you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

For the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring the metaphor of the garden as Life. In week one, we began as any gardener would, spending time surveying our own winter-worn patch of land (NOT someone else’s!) In week 2, we cleared away the debris left by the dark, cold winter, & we erected a sturdy fence to protect our future plantings.

Today, in the final week of this series, we are ready to plant our seeds. As Thoreau reminds us, no plant will spring up without a seed.

In your garden of life, what will you plant? I can think of any number of metaphors about planting seeds, but one that resonates with me:

“Do not plant lemon seeds & expect an orange to grow.”

~ Author Unknown

In our gardens, we may have decided to grow more love. Let’s take a peek in our sacks. Are we gathering seeds of love in our daily lives? Our world feels so divided today. We point fingers & blame each other. We judge people for their beliefs when they don’t match our own. I do it myself, ALL THE TIME! Can we notice when it happens & simply realize that all of us continually gather both orange & lemon seeds? Admitting our shared & flawed humanity is a giant step toward sowing the seeds of love. When we pay attention to what kinds of seeds we gather, we tend to accumulate more oranges than lemons.

Perhaps we want to grow peace of mind in our gardens. Wonderful! Let’s take a look in our sack. Do we have any peaceful seeds ready to plant? If not, we might try taking a moment to be still (instead of drowning in deadlines), or consuming uplifting content (instead of doom-scrolling social media), or spending time with peaceful souls (instead of crabby Aunt Betty & racist Uncle Ned).

Just as in Week 1, having a bountiful garden requires taking a look at what we have collected along the Path of Life. Spring is a wonderful time to see how many lemon seeds remain in our sacks & to consider how we might replace them with a few more oranges.

Growing beautiful gardens is as simple as how we present ourselves to the world each day. As St. Francis of Assisi so beautifully wrote:

“The deeds you do may be the only sermon someone hears today.”

May our gardens be abundant sources of love, peace & joy…

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Until next time,

~ Rosemary