How to Do it All : One Seed at a Time

Some mornings I think more than I write.

I stare into space as ideas meld together in my mind.  You might look at me and think I was doing nothing. Don’t let the blank stare fool you—inside my mind is turning over like compost.

This morning is just like that.    

With current projects I’m working on and new ones I want to begin, there’s so much asking for my attention.  I want to do it all.  And I want to give each one my full heart.

This isn’t the first time I’ve felt this.  A surge of excitement and energy, and then a long pause as I stare at the mountain of all the things I want to create.

It can easily turn into overwhelm.  It can easily lead me down a path of doubt as I find all the people who are already doing what I want to do, and doing it really well.

Do you know what I mean?  Are there creations stirring inside you, yearning to grow into fruition?  Does doubt live right alongside those dreams?

When I feel stuck, I open up a blank page in my journal and write.  I let my thoughts spill out freely, and I remember one important thing:

I can do it all, but I can’t do it all at once.

Einstein said something like, “The only reason for time is so everything doesn’t happen all at once.”

The same goes for farming and gardening.  You can’t get the harvest before you plant the seed.  And even then, you plant one seed at a time.

You get to the harvest by taking consistent action.  By tending to the garden one day at a time.

Planting the seed isn’t even the first step.  Deciding to grow is.  Give yourself permission to stare into space, to dream up enormous projects that excite you, to dream up a life that enlivens you.

And then plant one seed.  Tend to it.  Nurture it.  Be patient with it.  When you get to harvest, you’ll find that, just like a sunflower, that one seed has produced dozens more.

One seed of intention, well tended, will give root to an entire garden.

So decide to grow, and plant a seed.  

Getting back down to earth, here are my favorite vegetable varieties to grow for a delicious organic harvest.

I wish you a wintery week, filled with seed catalogs, dreams, and taking one step at a time.

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