Heart Spill: Magical Seeds & Wild Dreams

There are seven seedlings growing in my windowsill. A couple of months ago, I filled eight little cups with potting soil. I stuck my finger down into each one to make a hole. Then I dropped a pinch of seeds into each hole and covered it with soil. I waited with the eager anticipation of a child on Christmas Eve, and eventually each cup had little sprouts, except for one.

They are growing bigger now, by the day. Even after years of having an enormous garden in my backyard, I am still fascinated by plants. They move toward the sun so quickly that it’s alarming. I have to rotate them at least twice a week so that they don’t stretch over completely.

My cucumber plant is growing tendrils. When I rotate the cups, the tendrils move toward the sun within minutes. Did you know that if you touch a cucumber tendril gently, it will wrap itself around your finger immediately? The tendrils are little arms reaching out into the world for something solid to steady the plant and hold it in the sun’s golden warmth.

I watch this ancient rhythm of life unfold and my heart is full of joy. What magic is it that pushes these seeds to grow into the harvest that awaits? Just thinking about it makes my heartbeat speed up.

Because I had dropped several seeds in each cup, in some, many seedlings popped up. I had to cull them–to choose the strongest seedling in each cup and cut down the rest. Culling is a natural process, a necessity for growth. Yet, it pained me to bring my scissors to the beautiful little stems and clip them. I feel so connected to every living thing that to put an end to even a little seedling pains me.

Such is the way of my heart–all love, all compassion. My tender spirit makes me wonderful, but it also leaves me dangerously vulnerable.

I am re-reading Women Who Run With the Wolves. Although I have read it many times, I always read it in bits & pieces. It is far and away the most powerful book that I have ever read. I can only read a few pages and then I feel like my heart will burst, so I have to pause often.

Just before I sat down to write this post, I read this section about self-doubt and how it devastates a woman…

So though the woman attempts to follow the orders of self-doubt and agrees to be ignorant and submissive, she can only do so for so long. Finally she puts the key, the question, to the door and finds the shocking carnage in some part of her deep life. And that key, that tiny symbol of her life, will not stop its bleeding, will not cease to give the cry that something is wrong. A woman may try to hide from the devastations of her life, but the bleeding, the loss of life’s energy, will continue until she recognizes what it is and contains it.

When women open the doors of their own lives and survey the carnage there in those out-of-the-way places, they most often find they have been allowing assassination of their most crucial dreams, goals, and hopes. They find lifeless thoughts and feelings and desires; ones which were once graceful and promising are now drained of blood. Whether these hopes and dreams be about desire for relationship, desire for an accomplishment, a success, or a work of art, when there is this gruesome discovery in one’s psyche, we can be sure that the predator of self-doubt has been at work methodically destroying a woman’s most cherished desires.

This is the current work of my heart–to stop the bleeding, the loss of life’s energy, and to contain it. This means letting go of all self-doubt, embracing my true self, and believing in my ability to accomplish even my wildest goals.

Oh yes, it’s hard work; but it’s the very best kind of work.