By: Kristin Peterson (Drafted: Spring 2021, Revised: Today)

The love I allow myself to give, to receive, is like a parable… stretching my imagination to understand some semblance of a message of meeting…

Which seed shall I be? The seed that fell, discarded carelessly to the path, birds voraciously possessed in consumption… a core so focused on the how, the why, the when, the when, the who, the “What?!?” that I miss the bigger picture… pecked apart by a creature symbolizing flight and freedom…

Am I the seed that landed on rocky ground? A rose-colored sprout as a start, yet gets singed by the sun… patterns of protection carelessly abandoned, or more accurately, Undeveloped… so inscrutably novice and tender for its years… what a beautiful thing, if such subconscious actions of involuntary trust did not lead to its inevitable perish… a seed so caught up in the initial enthusiasm of the Moment that it doesn’t… that I don’t even notice where or even whether I’ve grounded myself, and thus, when the going gets tough: I can’t commit… the speculative overanalyses of potential hardships giving a negative slant to the otherwise positive potentials that perhaps a healthy person would imbue in balance of contemplation… not to mention, jumping to Attachment prior to simply getting to know the lay of the land before sowing self: threadbare and fraying in a patchwork quilt of Expectations, making it impossible to Connect… and so comes Fear… drying up my subconscious desires to Flourish… the addictive pull towards Chaos in Nature imbued in veins…

Am I the seed that fell among the thorn bushes… where if I continue to toxically vine myself around the contemplation of the opinions of others, I choke in the briars of my own rooting… so concerned with pleasing others to prove value and worth, unconsciously insinuating self in a vice grip of controlling manipulation set initially to both protect self and control others reception of Self, to be the bud they want to see, with no true bearing on my actual Nature, for how can another know me if I remain mystic even to self? Giving others the power, control, and insidious “Authority” to hold sway on my life… that I fail to recognize the invasive species stunting my growth is my own Self traced back, through stock, to Roots of generationally cursed Branches sprouting from familial plantings, with my own conception of Self becoming dependent on whether I choose to uproot the weeds to let myself breathe and find the space I need to grow…

I choose to be the seed that came to find herself in fruitful, abundant soil… not by happy accident, but by being flexible enough to surrender selfish wants, needs and desires to possess or control people, places and things… to plant myself in mind, body, spirit, with fierce determination to prioritize what is Truly best for Me and thus what is best for All… Universally Speaking… based on my soul contract of Meaning in this place… and I choose to believe it is all Possible… all with the faith of a mustard seed…