Seeds
Thinking they would kill us,
they buried us.
What they did not know is,
WE ARE SEEDS.
-- African proverb
​The nature of the rain is the same, and yet
it produces thorns in the marsh
and flowers in the garden.
— Arab saying
There is a power that has been since all eternity, and that force and potentiality is green!
-- Hildegard of Bingen
Though I do not believe a plant will spring up where no seed has been,
I have great faith in a seed.
Convince me you have a seed there,
and I am prepared to expect wonders.
-- Henry David Thoreau
Be no more than God hath made thee...
Sink down to the seed
which God sows in thy heart,
and let that grow in thee,
and be in thee,
and breathe in thee...
-- Quaker Isaac Penington (1677)
To be of the Earth is to know
the restlessness of being a seed
the darkness of being planted
the struggle toward the light
the pain of growth into the light
the joy of bursting and bearing fruit
the love of being food for someone
the scattering of your seeds
the decay of the seasons
the mystery of death and
the miracle of birth.
― John Soos
It is not given to us
to know how our life
will affect the world.
​
What is given to us
is to tend the intentions
of our heart
and to plant
beautiful seeds
with our deeds.
-- Jack Kornfield
A real gardener doesn’t wear gloves.
A real gardener wears dirt,
unafraid to get muddy, scratched or stung,
because hands are how
we see, hear, and feel the soil.
-- Karen Maezen Miller
If you turn a pair
of old trousers
inside out,
you're still left
with the holes.
-- Mikhail Sholokhov
The fathers have eaten green grapes,
thus their children's teeth are on edge.
-- Ezekial 18:2
Find those green, unripe places within your soul and nourish them, so in time you will be ripe...
-- Sibyl Dana Reynolds (Helvide in Ink and Honey)
You shouldn’t have to go to some expert
to know if you look here or there,
you’ll find something.
— T.J. Walker (Red Salmon, Brown Bear)
Now the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. -- Galatians 5:22
There's only two things that money can't buy...
that's true love and home grown tomatoes.
I think a little philosophy should be added to life and art by way of seasoning, but to make it one's specialty seems to me as strange as eating nothing but horseradish. -- Boris Pasternak
Wisdom teachings seep slowly
up from the ground by the roots,
spread through the branches,
and plop into your hands
right when you are ready to swallow them.
-- Karen Maezen Miller
A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible. -- Kahlil Gibran
When you crush an apple with your teeth,
say to it in your heart
​
“Your seeds shall live in my body,
the buds of your tomorrow
shall blossom in my heart,
your fragrance shall be my breath,
and together we shall rejoice
through all the seasons.”
​
— Khalil Gibran
We come together to practice
like trees in a forest.
No tree bothers any other.
Every tree shares the same ground.
light, water, food, and space.
Each grows according to its own capacity
and the conditions present.
​
Trees grow upright and strong, and together
create a place of shelter and beauty.
​
-- Maezumi Roshi
Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. -- Kahill Gibran
The best time to plant a tree
was twenty years ago.
​
The second best time is now.
​
-- Chinese Proverb
I push back from the fray
and step out into the garden
where the leaves rustle and bend
in gentle rhythm with the wind.
The air is fresh. The sky is blue.
It's an amazing place we live in
when we're not at odds with it.
Who can contain the love
that this one life brings with it?
It is boundless.
-- Karen Maezen Miller
On many an idle day
have I grieved over lost time.
​
But it is never lost.
​
Thou has taken every moment of my life
in thine own hands.
​
Hidden in the heart of things,
Thou art nourishing
seeds into sprouts,
buds into blossoms,
and ripening flowers into fruitfulness.
​
I was tired and sleeping on my idle bed
and imagined all work had ceased.
​
In the morning I awoke and found my garden
full with wonders of flowers.
​
-- Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali #81
The Earth laughs in flowers. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Even something as little as a flower,
possessing its being in God,
is more lovely and better
than the rest of the world put together.
​
To know that little flower
is to be closer to God
than if you knew an angel.
-- Meister Eckhart (trans. Sweeney/Burrows)
Plants are born tender and pliant;
dead, they are brittle and dry.
Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible
is a disciple of death.
Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life.
​
The hard and stiff will be broken.
The soft and supple will prevail.
​
-- Tao te Ching 76 (Stephen Mitchell)
It used to be that I would wake in the morning
and with confidence say “What am I going to do?”
​
That was before the seed cracked open...
​
Now when I awake, all the internal instruments play the same music:
“God, what love-mischief can we do for the world today?”
​— Hafiz
The fruit clings to its stem,
its skin clings to the pulp,
and the pulp to the seed,
so long as the fruit is immature...
its outer covering and its inner core
are not yet differentiated.
​
But when the seed is ripe,
its hold upon its surroundings is loosened,
its pulp attains fragrance, sweetness, and detachment,
and it is dedicated to all who need it.
​
-- Rabindranath Tagore
Precisely then, in trials and in solitude, while the seed is dying, that is the moment in which life blossoms, to bear ripe fruit in due time. — Pope Francis, Angelus for 5th Sunday in Lent B.
Do not fear change, even when it comes wearing the mask of death.
A seed that never ends its present existence will never grow.
— Olivia Wylie, Roots: Insights from the Tree Alphabet of Old Ireland
Leaves don’t drop they just let go.
They make a space for seeds to grow.
​
And every season brings a change.
A tree is what a seed contains.
To die - then live - is life’s refrain.
-- Carrie Newcomer
What shall be my legacy?
The blossoms of spring.
— Ryokan
Like the blossoms in their evanescence beauty,
throw yourself into this moment and leave no trace.
-- Karen Maezen Miller