Find a comfortable position,
Either sitting or lying down.
I invite you to close your eyes or soften your gaze.
And before we begin,
Notice if there's something in your life right now that you've planted in some way.
And are still waiting on.
Maybe it's a decision you made.
The conversation you had.
Something you started that you're still waiting for an answer on.
Just allow it to be present in the background of your mind.
Without any pressure or restriction.
About what the eventual outcome might be.
I invite you to see,
Sense or simply imagine a small patch of soil.
Maybe there's a real place that comes to mind or somewhere imagined.
Just notice the light at first.
Maybe it's early morning.
That pale gold kind of light that hasn't fully warmed up yet.
Feel the air.
It's cool,
Slightly damp.
Carrying that particular smell of turned earth,
Mineral,
Green,
All at once.
It's a smell that gets under your fingernails and stays there for the rest of your day.
See sense or simply imagine yourself kneeling in front of the soil with your knees pressed into the ground beneath you.
Feel the texture of the soil as you handle it.
Maybe it's coarse in some places,
Or fine,
Almost silty.
Maybe it has a few small stones you push aside without thinking.
Now see,
Sense,
Or simply imagine holding something small enough to fit in your closed hand.
Be a seed or a bulb.
I feel its weight,
Small and dense.
Almost nothing at all.
Making it everything it needs to become is already folded inside it.
Dig a shallow hole with your fingers.
Feel the cooler layer of soil just beneath the surface.
It's damper than the top and darker.
And set the seed down inside that little hole.
Slowly draw the earth back over it with both your hands.
Patting it down gently until the surface is smooth again.
And there's no trace at all left of what you just placed there.
And notice this moment right after the planting is done.
There's nothing left for you to do.
Feel into that stillness.
Maybe her palms are faintly cool.
Gritty with soil.
Resting on your knees or in your lap.
And the part about gardening that nobody tells you when you start is.
.
.
The waiting is the hard part.
It's not something you can point to and say.
Look what I did today.
For days.
Often weeks.
A patch of dirt looks exactly the same as it did yesterday.
The same color and the same flat undisturbed surface.
Nothing to check or prove that anything is actually happening underneath.
And yet something is always happening underneath.
In the dark,
Cool damp of the earth.
Roots are beginning to reach.
Thin as thread.
Feeling their way downward and outward.
Toward whatever they need.
And notice the urge if it's there.
Dig your seed or plant back up.
Just a check,
Of course.
Every gardener knows this urge.
And every gardener knows the hard truth that digging it up to check if anything is happening.
Is on surefire way to kill it.
The tender white threads that have started to form.
However far they've gotten.
Cannot survive being pulled back into the light before they're ready.
Let your hands,
Wherever they're resting right now,
Stay still.
Feel the weight of them settled.
Quiet.
Something is happening and yet.
You don't need to be part of it right now.
Your job was the planting.
And this next part belongs to someone else.
We'll think about everything a seed actually needs to become what it's going to become.
It needs some water.
Moving slowly down through the soil after our rain.
It needs some light reaching the surface even when nothing is visible there.
It needs some time,
More time than feels reasonable most days.
And it needs enough undisturbed darkness to do the part of the work that has to happen out of you.
The most important part of growth happens somewhere you can't see it and can't rush it.
That was never a flaw.
It was always the process.
See,
Sense or simply imagine the days passing over that patch of soil.
Imagine the rain falling steadily soaking down past the surface.
Imagine the sun returning after warming the top layer Drawing a faint line of steam off the earth as it dries.
And you're not checking the seed constantly.
You're just tending to the basic conditions,
Watering when it's dry.
Making sure it gets light.
And otherwise you're just trusting something you can't verify yet.
And this is what trust actually looks like most of the time.
It's a willingness to keep showing up with water and light without any proof.
And you are embracing uncertainty even when it feels difficult or frustrating.
And now imagine,
See,
Sense,
Or simply imagine.
The first green leaf breaking the surface.
Small,
Pale,
Almost translucent at first,
Curled tightly in on itself like a fist.
This little plant is barely starting to open.
It's easy to miss it if you aren't looking closely.
It doesn't arrive all at once or on the schedule you might have wanted.
It arrives when the roots below have done enough of their invisible work to finally need the light.
I feel what it might feel like to notice this for the first time.
You may wish to crouch down close to the soil.
Almost as if you're listening to something quiet.
Maybe you run a fingertip near it.
Not touching it,
Just close enough to feel the small miracle of it being there at all.
And remember that this timing was never something you controlled.
It controlled the planting.
The water.
Sometimes the light.
But the seed has its own timeline for completion.
Bring your awareness back to your own hands here in this moment.
Whatever you've planted that you're still waiting on.
Let your hands rest how they would after patting soil back over a seed.
Your hands are open,
Willing to keep showing up with whatever small steady things are actually yours to give,
Like attention,
Care,
Time.
Slow breath in and imagine if it helps that same cool earthy air filling your lungs.
Let it go slowly all the way out.
And you can do this a few times.
When you're ready,
Gently open your eyes.
Whatever you've planted is still doing its work.
Somewhere you can't see,
A schedule that was never going to be yours to set.
Your only job now is to embrace uncertainty and trust with your whole heart and your whole self.
