A few Christmases ago, my husband bought us a juicer. About 4 times a week I make us fresh fruit juice in the morning. Apples are a constant in this process, and whenever I prep them for the juicer, this passage from the Essene Gospels comes to mind:

“The mind of the wise
Is a well-ploughed field
Which giveth forth abundance and plenty.
For if thou showest a handful of seed
To a wise man,
He will see in his mind’s eye
A field of golden wheat.
And if thou showest a handful of seed
To a fool,
He will see only that which is before him,
And call them worthless pebbles.”

Before I read these lines I was a fool. (Still am, in many ways…) Yet now when I cut open apples for juice I thank them for their fertility and remark on how many apple trees would have grown if those seeds had been sown and nurtured.  Some apples are truly “fertile Myrtles,” others not so much.

How often do we think of the potential of a seed? I’m currently reading the memoir, West into the Night, by Beryl Markham. She tells of having to move due to drought, and includes this passage -- even expanding on the wisdom referred to in the Essene text. From page 132:

“Look at a seed in the palm of a farmer’s hand. … It holds three lives – its own, that of the man who feeds on its increase, and that of the man who lives by its culture. If the seed dies, these men will not, but they many not live as they always had. They may be affected because the seed is dead; they may change, they may put their faith in other things.

All the seeds died one year at Njoro and on all the farms around Njoro, on the low fields, on the slopes of the hills…   The seeds died because they were not nourished; they were starved for rain.”

Once again, I feel the fool. I had never considered the significance of seeds for a farmer. How our perceptions are so tightly woven into our life experiences! The starkness of these paragraphs impacted me profoundly.

Where do seeds appear in our lives? Some we will want; others not. How do we choose which to nourish, and to which do we assign the fate of death? Are there consequences as a result of those we allow to die?

In such a way does Life weave its web. We are part of it. Our decisions affect the pattern of the design, yet at the same time it’s ever-changing.

Consider the power of the little seeds.

Yesterday was Friday – the day when my practice of the Essene Gospels honors the Angel of Joy in the morning.

I wrote in an earlier blog about my challenges with Joy. But yesterday I was thinking about the prose in the text for that morning that reads,

“For the Lord is not worshipped with sadness,
Nor with cries of despair.
Leave off your moans and lamentations,
And sing unto the Lord a new song.”

There is wisdom in those words. Many years ago a woman in Jackson, WY who rented me space to offer Eupsychia Integrative Breathworks reminded me, “Energy follows intent.”  We could also say that what tends to manifest in our lives is that which we focus on. As a man I know often repeats, “Thoughts have energy.”

So if we wallow in our sadness (I’m not preaching here; believe me, I’ve done my share!) and tend to adopt a life view of ourselves as victims, things will always seem to go wrong for us. “Poor me!” becomes a constant refrain, and we find others who can put up with a constant barrage of our misery. Probably those who reinforce the mindset by sharing their own woes and complaints.

These lines of Essene text urge us: “Leave off your moans and lamentations!” Why might it say that? I think it’s because we are being told not to focus on how we’ve been wronged and all the undesirable things that have happened in our lives. Adopt a new perspective! Sing a new song!

Why? Because what we focus on not only manifests, but multiplies! In her DreamBuilder coaching program, Mary Morrissey tells us that in the Talmud (Jewish scriptures) it says, “Every blade of grass has an angel standing over it urging, ‘Grow, grow, grow!!’”  Look at nature – provided it is given the right environment (light, water, clean air, good nurturance) it grows!! We can’t stop it from growing! Plants come up between the squares of a sidewalk; small trees emerge from the clefts of a boulder; flowers nipped at the bud send forth new shoots.

How often we forget that we are part of nature. Our thoughts grow, too. They don’t need much nurturance; just our focus. What are we giving energy to today? A simple, “Stop; Refocus!” to ourselves can create a whole new day.

I love it when different traditions track with each other!

If you've been keeping pace with my posts on the Essene Gospels, you may remember that in honoring the Angel of Earth, the text in Book Four, page 28-29 says, "None can live long, neither be happy, but he honor his Earthly Mother... For your breath is her breath; your blood her blood; your bone her bone; your flesh her flesh....  I tell you truly, you are one with the Earthly Mother ; she is in you, and you in her. Of her were you born, in her do you live, and to her shall you return again."

And here is a Lakota elder giving a brief explanation of the name Oglallah, meaning Pours on Self:         "I come from the earth; that's who I am and that's who I'll go back to." Take a listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CItgaS99nQo

Remember to honor the Earth and to do your part, however small it may seem.  Thank you.