It’s been almost a week since my birthday. And I know I’m technically behind on blog posts, but it’s one of my craziest times of year right now and if I can’t show up fully for you, then I’d rather not show up until I can.
So here I am. Newly 35 and finally staring at some blue sky. Lately the weather has been drab and dreary with gray cloudy days and on and off rain for what seems like 2-3 weeks straight. Outside my window, my neighbor is toiling in her garden - a fitting metaphor for how I feel life has been going as of late. Toil, toil, toil. Tend, tend, tend. Then wait, wait, wait. Patience has never been my strongest suit, but I’ve gotten better about it over the years. Still, when you put so much effort into something, you want to see results. But sometimes those results need some processing time, some growing time, before they peek their heads out of the dirt.
In my 35 years, this lesson has repeated itself countless times. At least now I understand it. But it doesn’t always make it any easier of a pill to swallow. A good harvest requires time and care, water and sunlight, fertile soil, protection from predators and parasites… you don’t just plant the seed and end up with a field full of corn overnight.
The waiting is the most difficult part, I think. It’s that time where you learn the lessons and put things into perspective - whether it’s 35 years of life, or freshly laid seed. It’s the time where the growth happens in the places you can’t see. The roots dig in first - providing a solid foundation for the plant so it isn’t easily whisked away with a passing wind. But we can’t see those roots. So we feel the plant doesn’t grow. It is the same in ourselves. When we are doing the most work, when we are going through the most change, we can’t always see it. We don’t even always recognize it. We just see our efforts going unrewarded.
It’s all about patience. It’s all about the patience in wisdom of understanding. Of knowing that we are developing even if on the surface it appears we are at a standstill. It is about the patience of divine timing. Of knowing that the results that we want take time to come to fruition. We can’t launch a new business and expect it to be an overnight success. We can’t start piano lessons and expect to be a prodigy in a week. It takes work. It takes time. The Universe works quickly, but not always instantaneously. And even if it did, the results would be far less than we hoped for. You need to give time for word to get out about the business. You need to learn the ins and outs of operation, find opportunities to showcase your wares, and build up a solid customer base. You need to play the piano. Learn the keys, discover how to read the notes, develop technique. You need time to practice. Time to learn. Time to develop.
It is always a process.
When you finally start seeing some green, though, that doesn’t mean it’s time to pull up the plant. You haven’t given it time to flower. Time for the fruit to grow and ripen so it can be picked. It takes a while to see progress, but even as it starts to appear, there is still work to be done. Even once you harvest, that doesn’t mean you’re finished. You have to pull up the spent shoots. You have to prepare the soil. You need to let the ground rest before you start the process all over again. A gardener’s work is never done.
And neither is ours.
We are life. We are constantly growing, changing, harvesting, preparing, and starting again. We recover from trauma, from pain, from devastation. We learn lessons, we readjust to new normals, only to have it happen again. And that’s not to say that everything sucks and there is no end to suffering. It means that we are always evolving. We evolve through goodness and through pain. We evolve through joy, and through suffering. If we don’t pick up on the lesson we’re supposed to be learning, we may end up facing something a bit more intense so Spirit can get the message across. Ultimately, all that we experience is intended for the greater good of ourselves. We just have a hard time seeing it that way sometimes. Especially when we are waist-deep in muck.
Trust. Reflect. Nurture. Don’t be afraid to plant the seed. Be patient. Tender. Gentle. Kind. Grateful for the signs of growth. Joyful in the harvest. It’s your garden. It’s your life. How you tend to it determines how fruitful it will be.
It’s all in your hands.
💖🕯🕊
