The Seasons of Growth

         True life is lived when tiny changes occur. Leo TolstoyThe changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.  Leo Tolstoy

Becoming the person you want to be seems to be an uphill journey.  Always pushing the limits of confidence and fear of success.  I say fear of success rather than failure because for me success is more fear inducing than failure.  Failure can be so much easier.

Like the law of physics that state a body in motion stay in motion and a body at rest stays at rest until energy is applied.  How does one initiate the change one wants to be.  Some say fake it til you make it and I personally have had success with this idea.  Others say this idea has faults.  That others will recognize your inner lack of confidence. 

I believe its not really a matter of faking it...you;re not really faking it , its practice.  Its like learning any new skill, you have to start somewhere.  A musician doesn't start out playing concertos,  she starts out learning to play the scales.

Fruit of the Tree

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically.
We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly.
We grow partially. We are relative.
We are mature in one realm, childish in another.
The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward,
forward, or fix us in the present.
We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.
-Anais Nin 


Each apple on every tree in every orchard for all of the time that apple trees have existed is unique.  No two pieces of fruit are the same.  Each an individual expression of the tree's desire to create, not perfection, but diversity.

The tree accepts that it has no control over the season.  It will have no power to control the frost, the rain or sunshine it receives.  So, in order to continue the existence of its DNA it creates as much diversity as it can.  Knowing that it is diversity and not perfection that will give it the best chance to do this.

One apple may have thicker skin to resist insects better.  One apple may be shaped to catch the best rays of sunshine in cloudy weather.  Each idiosyncrasy exists for a highly developed purpose.

If each tree was able to reproduce only one perfect type of fruit the species would soon cease to exist. Nature's goal is diversity not perfection.

This is why we must seek our own diverse truths.  We must prune away our mangled branches and discover how we can best express our individual voices.

It is in the work of seeking our own truths that we make space for others to seek their truth.When we raise our vibration we are like tuning forks for others around us.

 As seekers we all eventually realize that the only person we need to really understand is ourselves and when we discover that the most important approval is our own we begin to set higher standards for ourselves.

True power is internal not external...

Pruning Tools

"The biting chill of the winter has left the wind, it has become softer and I can feel the promise of spring.  The orchard will soon be in full bloom."

Once we have figured out that we were told who we are by people who didn't know who they were we are then faced with responsibility to become who we were meant to be.

How do we do this?  This is the hero's journey.  The quest of life, to discover how to best express our uniqueness in the time and space we are allotted. 

The most difficult part of this can be leaving  people behind. Those people that may have at one time been integral parts of our lives but who now become threatened by our desire to grow. They want us to stay the same so they can stay the same.  Growth takes work and many are unwilling to do the work.  Our willingness to grow makes them uncomfortable being them. As painful as it is these people will become less important parts of our lives and their voices are replaced by voices we discover when we seek inspiration.

It must be said that great discretion must be used when we first begin this quest.  Mind and heart can easily be deceived,  we must always trust our gut reaction, which has nothing to do with emotion but it is that deep knowing of our souls.  We must not seek approval from others .  We must seek approval from our soul.  When we love and respect ourselves we make choices that reflect that respect and are less easily deceived.  

The Universe has supplied many tools and signposts to help us on our journey. When we trust this journey these signs become obvious everywhere. Three that I have found indispensable are Joseph Campbell, John Bradshaw, and a book called A Course in Miracles.

Pruning

A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.

Liberty Hyde Bailey

I asked the question "How do I become the change I believe in?"  The Universe answered "You must prune your tree.  Cut out all the dead and decaying branches for they steal energy from your fruit and make your orchard susceptible to wind storms.

When we choose to incarnate into this dimension of existence we are born completely dependent on our caregivers for life.  The perception of a newborn is that if its parents fail them they will die.  Parental connection is a life and death matter. An infant must put complete trust in their parents.  As we all know human parents often fail this trust. As we grow more and more people in our lives fail us.  We begin to loose trust of the world and realize that it is full of dangers. We see ourselves reflected in our families and realize we also fail and we loose trust in ourselves.

Mathematicians have calculated the chance of each of us being here and now .  It is one in 400,000,000,000,000.  Each of us is a miracle.  Our responsibility is to share our specialness with the world.  We are all a manifestation of the perfection of the Universe.  Our individuality is our gift to the world.

Learn to trust yourself.  Forget who you have been told you are and become who you know you were meant to be.

Prune your dead branches by discovering your true self and graft in new ideas by surrounding yourself with people that also want to be a part of the change.