On January 1st I went back to my community garden plot, just to see how it was sleeping. The place was quiet and seemingly undisturbed since my last visit in November. I snapped some photos, but mostly I just noticed the silence and all the shades of brown.
Upon leaving, I remembered how the year unfolded and just how humbled I felt in that space all season. Just humbled. Very humbled.
Despite all my efforts to cultivate thriving plants from bought seeds, Nature…just doing it its way with the resources of my compost bin…produced heartier plants. I was mesmerized watching plants grow from little seedlings I plucked from the compost bin. I was enamored with a tomato plant that traversed out of the bin to reach the sunlight it needed.
Those “compost” plants taught me much about Nature. They also threw a giant spotlight on my human propensity (initially) to have wanted to control Nature’s output, a propensity spurred on by the all-too-human belief that I somehow know the best way to create. Yet if the way in which I yielded crops last year is any indication of which entity is in control, I think I can declare Nature the hands-down “winner.”
So as the “loser” in this scenario, what did I learn from Nature’s success?
Well, it seems when intending to cultivate something, Nature doesn’t force. Nature doesn’t force seeds to do anything! Nature also doesn’t attach, hover or doubt; Nature really doesn’t “tend” seeds. And yet, crops and trees and shrubs grow.
What does Nature do? Nature gives. Nature waits. Nature keeps moving. Nature sees the bigger picture. Nature seems to have perfected its ability to be generous without expectation, to let the circumstances create that which is most appropriate and sustainable for the conditions, and to maintain an abiding faith that a seed may be different than another, but its potential is no less. Nature seems perfectly okay with seeds being sleepy, quick to open into a baby plant, or not producing at all.
What does any of this have to do with mindfulness?
Well, I’ll begin a new session of children’s yoga classes next month. In those short blocks of time, I’ll teach as much about movement and practices as I’ll plant “seeds” of mindfulness. (The bits of universal wisdom that get passed from generation to generation, with the hope that we keep “sprouting” more mindful citizens of humanity, are often referred to as “seeds” by yoga teachers and educators).
But it’s rare that a student or a group of students will show us teachers such growth in the time we know them. It happens. But we plant a lot of seeds.
Last year, I questioned whether the seeds I was planting in these classes were of value, since I wasn’t going to be around to see the fruits of the work. But whether we are a teacher, a friend, a parent, etc. to children (or even adults), we can learn much about how to work with planting seeds if we mimic Nature a bit. Well, at least I think there’s something to learn there since Nature seemed to do this whole “seed thriving” thing better than I last season!
Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long in A Seed is Sleepy write a bit about Nature’s characteristics and seeds’ characteristics in a child-friendly format. Their text and illustrations are provided for educational purposes, but they speak to deeper concepts than just the array of seeds in the world, the parts of seeds, the lifecycle of seeds, and conditions seeds need to thrive. They also point to qualities and characteristics that seeds “display” that allow them to work with Nature and how Nature works with their natural way.
In A Seed is Sleepy, seeds are shown to be sleepy and still. They transform. They detach from their hosts. They follow their own path. They settle in. They wait a bit more. And then, if needed, they create… in stages.
This book and the garden seem to emphasize the same idea: a seed can rest, seemingly dormant for a long time. But the parent plant drops it anyway, with the faith that if the seed is needed, it will thrive.
Lessons I offer may resonate differently with each student. The results may “reveal” themselves at different times or not at all. But as the job of the plant, tree, etc is to offer back what it has, so is the job of the teacher, parent, caregiver, etc. The mindfulness rests in knowing that the seeds know what to do in all conditions, if they are needed; but they can only begin their journey if the parent plant drops them.
I’m looking forward to working with a new group of students. May I be mindful in each lesson and remain trusting of this natural process. May I be generous without expectation. May I be as humbled in each class as in each visit to the garden.
Namaste and Happy New Year!
I recommend this book for those ages 8 and up.
Themes: nature, acceptance, patience, non-attachment, growth, faith
Themes for Yoga Teachers: nature, acceptance, patience, non-attachment, faith, growth
