What if it isn’t just about planting new seeds but tending, pruning, propagating and composting what is already growing?

An analogy that has been useful for me in many contexts is one of sewing seeds and considering life as a tending to various gardens (or farms depending on the scale of the thing in my life). 

In this analogy seeds are ideas, opportunities, or possibilities.

The planting seeds analogy is useful to me as a reminder of what we can control. We can plant seeds, we can tend to them, and we can create the conditions to give them the best chance of growing. What we cannot do is know which ones will grow nor when No doubt people with better gardening knowledge and skills (in real life and in the analogy) may be able to predict which ones are more likely to grow but it seems doubtful they will ever know for certain. 

Then came the thought: 

What if there are seeds already sown and it is really about choosing which ones to tend to and how? 

Yes, we can plant seeds and that helps us create new opportunities in our lives, but what about what is already there? 

Our flat windowsill is currently full of ficus tree cuttings that came from a ficus we have had for years. 

What are the things that have already grown that we can harvest or multiply? 

What of the dormant seeds waiting for the right conditions to germinate? 

What or who are those seeds in our lives? 

Pruning some very long, very straggly, very fruitless chilli plants for the first time begged the question: 

What are the plants we can tend to more? 

Ultimately, expanding the planting seeds analogy can remind us of two things. First, there are likely many things growing in our lives we take for granted. Second, we can choose what to tend to and there are more options than just planting new seeds. 

Alongside planting new seeds, we can harvest existing fruits from previous seed-plantings, propagate what already is, prune what already is, give away what already is, or sometimes let die and compost what is already growing. 

In remembering those things that have already grown, even if we choose to compost them, we are also remembering the things we have grown and tended to before, the experiences and wisdom that we can use to tend and plant and create the plants we want to make up the ecosystem of our lives.

What is the ecosystem you want to create in your life? 

What will that ecosystem bring? 

What does that ecosystem need?

What is already there that you can harvest and grow? 

What else do you need to plant?

What needs pruning and what needs composting? 

From the ecosystems you have cultivated already, what do you have to help you tend the ecosystem you want which you can take for granted? 

What if we all realised that we don’t only have to plant new seeds but there are things we can tend to and grow from what already is?