The Power of A Seed

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.