The 12 Phases in a Season of Growth
The 12 Phases in a Season of Growth, is a collection of ancient lessons taught by Mother Nature showing you how to begin, grow, let go, rest and repeat.
This series will help you discover what growth your intuition is guiding you towards & will give you step-by-step guidance towards the growth that is natural for you.
If you are new to True by Nature, welcome! Every Wednesday throughout the summer, I send out another chapter in my (eventual) eBook, The 12 Phases in a Season of Growth (working title). So far, I have released:
Phase One: Turn Over a New Leaf
Phase Two: Organic Root
Phase Three: Sow the Seeds (This Post)
I have created a special section where I store The 12 Phases in a Season of Growth, as it is not featured on my homepage of this blog.
Planting the Seed
Now that you know what lesson your intuition is trying to get you to learn, and you are in the process of addressing your soil, now is the time to make a plan to get the seed in the soil.
The relationship you are healing, whether it’s with yourself, others or nature—is the seed you are planting today. What you are about to plant requires your dedication and attention—not unlike a vegetable seed in the garden.
This seed has likely wanted to be planted and nurtured for a very long time. You have probably tried to sow this seed in the past, but with no luck. Maybe you have planted the seed, but it never even broke through the soil.
Or maybe your seed started to grow, but life got in the way and your forgot to (metaphorically) water it, leaving it to perish in the garden. No matter how many times you have tired and failed—you are now learning how to grow this particular seed through the lens of growth found in nature.
By following the blueprint given to us my Mother Nature herself, you are likely to have more success this time so long as you follow her guidance.
Once you listen to your intuition and surrender to the lesson revealed, the growth process really begins. This process is called intuitive growth:
Intuitive Growth: living your life guided by your inner-wisdom and following the patterns of growth in the garden.
Conditions for Growth
With a vegetable garden, each plant has specific needs in order to grow. Peppers need heat, spinach needs cool temperatures and asparagus need at least three seasons to get set up before they produce an abundant harvest.
Gardeners can build greenhouses, set up grow operations in their basements or plant the seeds in shady areas to control temperatures-but the plants will only grow if their needs are met.
The same goes for the seed you are planting today, you can not simply exert your will over the seed. You can’t no more fix your marriage by getting your partner to change than you can grow a zucchini plant in the dead of winter.
Growth is a result of understanding what the plant needs and continuing to improve the environment until plant gets what it needs in order to thrive.
Every seed has to be studied and understood as it is placed in the ground (or started in a greenhouse). There is no one-size-fits-all approach to growth and getting a seed to germinate is an artform; part science, part mystery and personal to your specific garden.
No two lives are the same and nor are two gardens. What grows in your neighbor’s garden may not grow well in yours, no matter much you wish it would.
There are so many hidden lessons in this intuitive season of growth, you will be amazed what you will learn about yourself. Just like the learning curve a novice homesteader new to gardening experiences- you will experience some trial and error before your plant is thriving and producing fruit.
Choosing Your Specific Growth Conditions
On the back of every seed packet, you will find guidelines that will help you grow a plant to its fruition. Keep in mind that these guidelines are not black-and-white fail-proof nuggets of wisdom, but more universal truths that a skilled gardener adapts to fit their garden.
The growth conditions on the back of a seed packet are both vague and specific, using terminology like ‘approximate’ or ‘average.’ Growth conditions are not set in stone— just as no two vegetables grow at the exact same rate or grow to be the same size, shape or color.
The growth conditions you create for the seed you are about to sow should be both concrete and flexible-leaving room for error but requiring commitment and consistent care.
The conditions need to be measurable, realistic and specific to this seed.
For example, when I was creating my growth conditions to heal my relationship with food, I considered what changes I would need to make in order to get to a point where I was no longer controlled by sugar.
After spending a significant amount of time pondering what I needed in order for this seed to grow (to heal my relationship with food) it became clear that the growth conditions included:
eliminating added sugar
avoiding mind-altering substances
doing away with eating outside my home
I figured that if I were to follow these conditions for growth, I would have a decent chance at reaching my harvest (as established in phase two).
Eliminating added sugar required courage because sugar is so ubiquitous in our culture and so (physically & emotionally) addictive. To choose to abstain from added sugar means that I am not ‘normal’ nor will I ‘fit in.’ As a recovering people pleaser, my Achilles heel has always been fear of being kicked out of the ‘tribe’ whether that’s family, friends or co-workers.
I chose to eliminate sugar because I have very little control over my sugar consumption once I get started. I don’t stop after one scoop of ice cream and reminding myself to do all things in moderation did nothing to stop me from eating a half-gallon of ice cream in an afternoon. If I could moderate myself, I would done that 25 years ago.
I had to go sugar sober.
Avoiding mind-altering substances became one of my growth conditions because I know that as soon as I have a glass of wine or eat an edible, I lose my inhibitions and start justifying reasons to make (and consume) cookie dough. Having a completely clear mind is the only way for me to have a fighting chance at not consuming food for emotional reasons.
For nearly three decades, I was not able to outgrow my dysfunctional relationship with food no matter what I tried. To some, cutting out sugar and mind-altering substances is limiting and extreme, but after 25 years of struggling with doing things the ‘normal’ way, I was willing to try something new.
Doing away with eating outside my home made the list because it is nearly impossible to have a sugar-sober diet if I’m not the one cooking my meals. Sugar is in everything from salad dressings to bread to condiments— and trying to find something without sugar out in the real world would be nearly impossible.
As in the garden, conditions for growth do not guarantee a bountiful harvest, but they help a gardener better understand what the plant needs. In my case, if I ever wanted to heal my relationship with food, I needed to set up some measurable parameters to see whether of not my growth conditions would influence the harvest.
These conditions I laid out for myself were not rigid, but established to help see what came up for me when I followed through on them. All growth requires follow-through and courage, and for me to follow through on my experimental conditions would certainly require both.
Here’s your challenge:
Consider the changes that you would need to make in order to successfully grow your plant. If the relationship you are healing had a seed packet, what would you find on the back of it?
The next phase in The 12 Phases in a Season of Growth is Phase Four: Calm Before the Storm