The Courage of the Seed

I hope you are all enjoying the long weekend. Last week I had conversations with two different people who had experienced deep loss of a close family member in the previous weeks. For one it was a complete shock which brought with it a complex set of emotions mixed with the grief, and for the other it was a drawn out process with an inevitable ending and a different combination of feelings intertwined with the grief.

Either way, loss can lead us to a dark place. It can bring up questions such as why did this happen? or what is my purpose? It can make us feel small and helpless and completely out of control.

I shared this reading below with students this past week because it helps us remember that even in the darkest of times we can soften into the unknowing both in our bodies and our hearts. 

The Courage of the Seed, Mark Nepo

As all buried seeds

crack open in the dark

the instant they surrender

to a process they cannot see

    What a powerful lesson is the beginning of spring. All around us, everything small and buried surrenders to a process that none of the buried parts can see. And this innate surrender allows everything edible and fragrant to break ground into a life of light that we call spring.

   In nature, we are quietly given countless models of how to give ourselves over to what appears dark and hopeless, but which ultimately is an awakening that is beyond all imagining.  This moving through the dark into blossom is the threshold to God.

   As a seed buried in the earth cannot imagine itself as an orchid or hyacinth, neither can a heart packed with hurt imagine itself loved or at peace. The courage of the seed is that once cracking, it cracks all the way. 

We can practice that surrender on the mat by softening into resistance in the body. When we do surrender, that is often the time when the tension can release a bit and we can grow in our practice. Off the mat it can work the same way. We have to be with the pain and meet it with compassion in order for us to crack open our seed and bloom.