Farming and gardening have been crucial part of human development.  Many gradual changes in our society happened around the practice of sowing seeds and growing food.  How can we apply the practices of growing food to the practice of growing our bodies?  How does working the soil relate to change?

When we plant a seed in the earth, it can take days and even weeks before we see the sprout emerge above the surface.  But this doesn’t mean the growth and change isn’t occurring.  Often we mistake the silence of sprouting seeds beneath the soil as a lack of movement.  In actuality, the seeds of change have sprouted and are taking root.   Quietly, change is stretching its arms legs and waking.  We often throw away our practices before we have a chance to witness the fruits of our labor.  It takes two, sometime three seasons for change to mature and bare fruit.

Envision change as a matryoshka doll, a Russian nesting doll.  It begins deep inside of as an intention, as a spark.  This is the smallest doll in the center.  As we nurture that idea and develop practices around change, the doll grows larger.  Slowly over time change grows from the inside out.  When the roots are strong and the practices are consistent, old habits are shed like a snake skin.  The outer self falls away and we are left standing, embodied with change.  Change occurs from the inside out.

Under our skin and between our bones, muscles, and organs is space.  The capillaries slowly leak water from the bloodstream like a garden hose with tiny holes that has been buried under the soil.  The vessels are porous and water seeps out from the bloodstream, irrigating the Interstitial Space. This water of life is made of  the water we drink, the food we eat, the air we breath, the chemical messengers we release from emotions and hormones and lastly our immune response.  All of these ingredients float in an aquarium under skin down to our bones.

The air we breath, the water we drink and the food we eat is fed by the blood stream into the aquarium.  The emotions we experience are the spices that flavor that soup.  Our cells drink this soup to repair and regrow new cells, to manifest our new self.  The quality and  balance of all that we put in our aquarium represents the foundation of what we become.

Changes happen from within.  Like a Russian Nesting Doll, the smallest inner child expands to the next size until you become the seeds you planted, until you become your practices.  You are what you eat, drink, breath and experience. Set clear intentions.  Garden your self.  Plant new seeds and become the change you practice.