Seeds Pointing to a Possible Future for Next Generations
The last few sweet pea flowers are straggling along in my now dry, mostly un-watered garden. I am just about to wrap up harvesting their seeds. I love this ritual: waiting for green pods to turn brown and brittle, collecting from various spots, splitting them open, the tactile joy of teasing the firm seeds out of their shell. Filling my old metal jar. The irregular round seeds rattle and roll with a satisfying tune – riches in my hand. I got plenty, offering some as gifts to friends. Come winter rains, I push the seeds in the wet ground. Of course, the sweet pea vines have been reseeding all along.
Left in the hot sun, the pods split, curling into spirals. The pods’ spiraling force propels the seeds out into the world. I marvel how flowers have been our first little women engineers. A clever and simple mechanism, so life can be continued. Propagating beauty, dispersing hope, thinking of future generations. We humans knew how to do that, too; didn’t we? Do we still care enough, so that when we die, our legacy will be hope – "the thing with feathers"?
Innocent wet fish, out of water,
unknowing, and yet no fools…
As we old ones disappear, may
precious hope and tempered courage
be propelled into the future…
seeding themselves like coy miracles
in midst of utter chaos….
Yessss 💞 nature is the original engineer! And nature's engineering is so much more beautiful and right. Love seeing the lifecycle of these precious sweet peas.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photos and lovely thoughts, Karina. Are the concluding lines yours? The preceding Emily Dickinson line is so apropos. Many young people I know are very pessimistic ... Given a world that seems to be falling apart, with a shrug and "here you go, kid, good luck fixing it."
ReplyDeleteYes, Ken, the concluding lines are mine.
DeleteYour question prompted me to put "the thing with feathers" in quotation marks, thank you! Many years ago, a friend of mine made a documentary with that title, and i see now books and TV series are using this evocative term, stemming from Emily Dickinson's poem titled: "Hope" is the thing with feathers.
your photos are as poetic as the words you weave together. my mind enjoys imagining the dances of plants growing and dispersing seeds as well as the cycles of life and death, the rise and fall of the garden, lusciousness to dryness and letting go, scattering of possibilities through the seeds and the quiet waiting before spring. when you write about your process of gathering seeds it reminds me how good it feels, presence and slowness that comes from collecting and also the fun at spreading them, something I enjoyed as a kid "playing" at school.
ReplyDeleteToday while working in my tiny contained garden, I came across the nasturtium seeds that you gifted me. I can not wait to place them in the soil when the time is just right. Again and again, your words reach deep into our earthly souls and give hope. For Mama Nature is the ultimate harbinger of hope.
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