Dear Friends, the Equinox is a threshold in the turning of the year. Both hemispheres are poised between endings and beginnings—whether winter toward spring, or summer into autumn. It reminds me that we are always in transition, always part of Life’s unending cycles.
Where I am, in northern California, spring is bursting into leaf and bloom. As I write this, it is not only Equinox, but a new moon—auspicious for planting seeds, visions, intentions, and dreams, so they may grow with the lengthening days. In my little garden, I delight in the return of green loved ones as they push their way out of the soil.
Yet at the same time as this vibrant emergence, so much in our collective life is dying. Systems of governance once assumed secure, now collapsing under the weight of greed and corruption. Wars, genocide, imperialism, and a cruel betrayal of the collective good spread like a malevolent fire across communities and continents.
How do we hold all of this without sliding into either devastation or denial?
Nature teaches us that the death of what has been creates space for something new to arise. But it’s a gradual unfolding. Just as we can’t hasten the arrival of a butterfly by ripping open the cocoon, we can’t leapfrog over the process of dying to get to rebirth. (It’s worth noting that the butterfly is only made possible through the complete decomposition of the caterpillar!) We must learn to inhabit the arduous in-between, the liminal space between what was and what is yet to come.
When I say “inhabit” I don’t simply mean endure. Rather, how do we live fully into what this moment demands—and the opportunities it offers—knowing it might be a “moment” that lasts years or even generations. Who do we want to be as we meet these times? . . . Who do you want to be? What qualities do you want to impart, to embody. What seeds will you cultivate to foster the world we long for, and nurture future generations? And what harvest of wisdom from generations past can help guide us in our season?
In Nature, seeds are both the beginning and the end of the cycle. They are formed when flowers and fruits die, and they engender new life. The beauty we savor in spring requires the death that precedes it. And it is the decaying bodies of dead plants that become rich compost to nourish new growth. We are inseparably part of a reciprocal and synergistic progression. I find this deeply reassuring.
Perhaps you have heard me say I believe that each of us is here with purpose. Each of us brings unique gifts and qualities that are needed in these times. Each of us is called to contribute to the transgenerational project of collective transformation.
So often I find people judging their contributions as insignificant or inadequate; their purpose too small to make a difference. We have been conditioned to think that the only meaningful purposes are those that are publicly known or lauded. That only those “big purposes” of heroic individuals matter. But seeds are small, and look what grows from them.
We might think of the humble acorn that becomes a mighty oak, but even more to my point is an example used by the teacher Yeshua. He often drew on the wisdom of Nature, and offered a parable about the power of faith the size of a mustard seed. Mustard seeds are tiny. It wasn’t until I lived in North Carolina, however, that I really understood the significance of the metaphor.
Each spring as I drove the back roads near Durham, the fields would be covered with acres of yellow flowers. One tiny seed can grow a plant that yields more than 1200 seeds! As those seeds scatter and sprout—well, you can see how quickly they take over. What if our purpose is like that? Each seed is nothing particularly notable, but what grows from it takes over the landscape, yielding a cascade of benefits.
The visionary intentions we plant now, in this threshold season of upheaval, can act like mustard seeds to shift the collective consciousness of humanity. Part of what has maintained repeated cycles of brutal domination over the centuries, is that so many humans keep planting and watering the same seeds, again and again. In this period of the in-between, of the simultaneous dying and birthing of worlds, what seeds of generative possibility are you cultivating?
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Friends, please share in the comments the seeds of intention you are planting, and the qualities you bring to these times. I love hearing from you . . . The only way through is together.
Photo above by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash
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