by Jon Stevens

Seeds are amazing. They come in all sizes… from orchids which have a million in a gram and needs a fungus to land on before it can grow to the Coco de Mer which weighs 40 pounds each and floats in the South Seas from island to island looking for a home. Some seeds are round, some flat, some hard, some soft, some, like beets, with several plates on them each with a plant behind them. For you see, inside each seed is a little plant waiting until conditions are just right, to grow.

When the water, the temperature, the light, the air, the chemicals in the soil, all are just right, it starts to grow, shattering the shell around it, living on the endosperm (think of the yolk of an egg) inside it until it’s roots have grown out and reach the soil and take in the nutrients you have placed there for it. One part of the baby plant pushes down into the soil and becomes roots. The other part pushes up and becomes the stem and leaves and branches and fruit. It is an awe filling thing to watch.

Each seed is a dream. It is a dream of what it wants to become…whether potatoes or pumpkins or kale or carrots. Inside the DNA are the blueprints and a lettuce will never really become a leek nor a turnip ever a good tomato.

So it is with our dreams. Inside each of us is the blueprint of what we are to become. And when our conditions are right, we stretch out, shattering the protective shell of our personal dormancy and start to put down our roots into the soil someone has put around us. We reach our tops towards the life giving light, towards the sun in our life. And the DNA within us guides us to become teachers or fire fighters or grocers or bakers or farmers…if we are nurtured and given all we need to grow.

Sometimes though, it seems a turnip does try to become a tomato. A farmer may for years try to become a salesman. A homemaker may try to become an executive. But eventually the DNA will win out and a midlife crisis will happen and true callings will be identified. And if we are brave, really brave, we’ll let go of the old trappings and put on the coats of our calling and step out in faith that the blueprints of our personal DNA will guide us to the contentment we see in those who have gone before. We can then sing with sincerity from that old Shaker hymn, “Simple Gifts”, “And when we find ourselves in the place just right, ‘twill be in the valley of love and delight.”

So when you are ready to pick up the DNA of your youth, to follow that blueprint and build your true home “in the valley of love and delight”, be brave. Many have gone before you and you will be an encouragement to other pumpkins who are trying to be a potato for some odd reason. And most importantly, you will be true to yourself. And that is what it is all about.

Happy Hoeing,

Jon and Elaine, the placed just right farmers, Snickers the well placed dog, Mystery the simple cat, Ben and his flock of lovely chickens, and the Parson Dudley Brown and his flock of delighted ducks, all of whom live joyfully at The Open Gate Farm.

This entry was posted on November 11, 2011 at 7:52 am and is filed under Essays, Jon Stevens, Top. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.