Sowing Seeds, Beginning Anew

As I welcome this New Year, I feel the subtle increase in light, the gentle pull back into the outer world after going deep into reflection and rest. I love seeing the way in which my inner experience is mirrored in the natural world. So much is being drawn into green sprouts, divinely fragrant blossoms, early wildflowers.

Just as the rains arrived, my girls and I had a profound full-circle experience. We had harvested seed heads from our favorite coastal California native medicinal plant, Grindelia, two years ago. These seeds came from the same plants from which my girls first harvested flowers to make medicine. From the same plants we'd defended from blackberry siege. From the same plants who gave us the (effective and delicious) medicinal honey we've been using as we recover from the flu. We have been waiting for just the right moment to prepare just the right ground, in just the right place, for these special seeds to be sown. Here it was.

As we prepared a special place up near the bees, at the edge between coastal chaparral and grassy opening, I reflected on the beauty of sowing seeds, and tending plants. What would these future plant beings most like? What do these seeds-these miraculous little instructions for unfolding life-want? How can we give these plants the best chance at survival? And, knowing full well that there is a chance they won't make it, what is the energetic quality most present in the sowing? Earnest hopefulness, curiosity and tender care.

What will these seeds, germinating in the darkness under ground, be experiencing? They, too, will (hopefully) be drawn out of the darkness by the light, the life-giving warmth of the Sun. Reaching their little roots down into the Earth as they leaf outward, they are in a dynamic state of balance, in connection with nourishment from above and below.

I treasure the Winter, the stillness, the time of rest and reflection. This Winter, as I vision into next steps on my path and that of Natura's, I am taking inspiration from the wise plants. In order for a plant to achieve full bloom and be fully expressed in beauty, brimming with vitality (as well as antioxidants, phytochemical, etc.), and happiness, it has to be nourished. I'll be deepening my rooted connection to this sacred Earth, making sure I am nourishing myself with nutrients and rest, sun and rain, poetry and love, song and dance. Only then can outward expression flourish.

I am so grateful to have daughters who tenderly care for the Earth, and who model earnest hopefulness as they learn to sow seeds. Like me, they have no idea how this will all turn out. Here in the Garden, or anywhere on Earth for that matter. The matter at hand, here in this moment, is to joyfully and tenderly tend the Earth, sow seeds, and keep a song in our hearts. This, we can do.