"Sowing Seeds"

It’s not much to look at, a handful of seeds. It doesn’t weigh much, either. But what you could hold in that handful is the possibility, no the probability, of magic. These seeds could be food, could be flowers, they could be whatever you want to plant, whatever you want to grow.

When I’m teaching yoga, I ask my students, at the beginning of the practice, to a take a deep breath, and choose an intention – “the feeling that you love the most- you might love to feel strong or safe, you might love to feel energized or powerful, you might love to feel calm or relaxed – there’s no right or wrong, just choose you favorite feeling, and make it your intention.”  So take a moment now, and imagine your favorite feeling. Consider it to be a seed.

In the current issue of the New Yorker, there’s a piece called “ The Poverty Clinic”, which is about exploring the correlation between Adverse Childhood Experiences, the amount of trauma that a child suffers and the kind of health problems they will manifest as adults. 

From the New Yorker - “Beginning in 1995, Kaiser HMO members in the San Diego area who came in for a comprehensive medical exam were given a questionnaire asking them to describe their personal history in various categories describing childhood experiense, including abuse, and neglect, as well as growing up with family members who suffered from mental illness or drug problems.  In the course of a few years, more than 17,000 patients completed the questionnaire, a response rate of about seventy percent.”

The researchers found some interesting results. “These correlations seemed to follow a surprisingly linear dose-response model- the higher the ACE score (that’s ACE, Adverse Childhood Experiences- ) the worse the outcome, in almost every measure, from addictive behavior to chronic disease. Compared with people who had no history of ACE, those with scores of 4 or higher were twice as likely to smoke, seven times as likely to be alcoholic, and six times as likely to have had sex before the age of 15.  They were twice as likely to be diagnosed with cancer, twice as likely to have heart disease, and four times as likely to suffer emphasyma or chronic bronchitis. 

Adult with a score of 4 or higher were twelve times more likely to have attempted suicide than those with a a score of 0. And men with an ACE score of 6 were forty-six more times likely to have injected drugs than men who had not history of ACE-“

46 times more likely. That’s what researchers call statistically significant.

It was not always, as you might think, that poor choices such as smoking lead directly to health risks like cancer. Adults who had a score of 7 or higher, who did not manifest health challenging behaviors- they did not smoke, did not drink excessively, nor were they overweight- - had a risk for heart disease that was 360 percent higher than it was for patients with a score of O -

Seeds were planted. In very young bodies, seeds were planted.

Yogic philosophy holds that we have bodies within our body, and bodies outside of it. The one that we think of as body is referred to as “the envelope of the flesh.” So while the scientists studying Adverse Childhood Experiences still have what they refer to as “big scientific gaps” in how all this is connected, the data show that the connection is there. Metaphysically, it makes sense that an emotional injury has a biological effect. We are coming to the conclusion that physically it makes sense as well.

Take a breath with your intention, and notice how it comes to you – word, image, thought or senasation. No right or wrong here, just you and you intention.  Feel it growing.

A documentary about artist Jean Michael Basquiet entitled “The Radiant Child” points out that many conceptual artists were raised either bilingual or trilingual – the ability to think in different languages is thought to help a person see things from many different points of view. At the same time is thought to open the mind towards a wider focus – As two examples, Picasso spoke Spanish, Catalan and French – Basquiet spoke Spanish, French and English. When a child understands that things can be imagined and expressed in so many different ways it opens up areas of the brain that can then think in a different way. Like being exposed to many languages, simply exposing a child to a lot of art- museums, galleries, and such, and letting them know that creativity is valued, is important, gives the child a perspective that being an artist is a good thing. When you know there’s more than one way to be good- It can bonne, it can be bueno you have more good than when you have just one way to say it.

Giving someone an idea- It’s like planting a seed.

With the current level of crisis in the world, it’s enough to make anyone want to bury their head in a pillow and cry. With bombs falling on Libya, with radioactive steam leaking out into Japan, it’s a challenge not to let the seed of despair lodge itself in to daily discourse.

Sometimes, you have to go into the darkness long enough to let something new grow.

With Orpheus and Eurydice, it was a matter of trust- If Orpheus had listened to his heart, and not his worried, fearful head, he could have gotten her out. If only he had trusted himself just a little more he might have gotten what he wanted – He braved the darkness for what he wanted, and that in itself is admirable. Also a lesson that not everything that goes into the darkness can be renewed.  Sometimes a planting is a burial.

In the New Testament, in the parable of the sower, Jesus tells this story, a sower dropped seed on the path, on rocky ground, and among thorns, and the seed was lost; but when seed fell on good earth, it grew, yielding thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.

It's not just having a s good seed, it’s having the best place for it to be planted.

When we decide to come together in this building and call ourselves a church, and decide how we will be a community, this is the seed we plant.

So I want you to close you eyes, take a deep breath and feel your intention.

When we make a choice, we plant a seed.

We only need to be conscious, when sowing our seeds, when making our choices, that they are really what we want to harvest.  These seeds grow into flowers and fruit, and this is the fruit that feeds us.  Just as the proverb tells us, thought becomes action, action becomes habit, and habit becomes life. How we spend our time is how we spend our lives.

It’s Spring. Even in the chill and the rain, the season of hope comes to us. If you suffered in the past, you can choose to heal, you can choose to do things differently.

Every thought, every action, is a seed that you sow – Physicist and author Gary Zukov notes that “By choosing your thoughts, and selecting which emotional currents you will release and which you will reinforce, you determine the quality of your light. You determine the effect you have on others, and the nature of your experience of your life.”

It might seem a lot to do, but we make choices all the time.

By meditating on healing for Japan and for Libya, we are also choosing healing for ourselves. By sowing the seed of hope, even in a casual conversation, rather than reinforcing the fear and despair, we are changing the fruit of the future.

Another New Testament parable, the parable of the mustard seed offers the example of rapid growth.

There is a "subversive and scandalous "element to this parable, in that the fast-growing nature of the mustard plant makes it a "malignant weed" with "dangerous takeover properties" Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (published around AD 78) writes that "mustard… is extremely beneficial for the health. It grows entirely wild, though it is improved by being transplanted: but on the other hand when it has once been sown it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it, as the seed when it falls germinates at once."

 So, be aware of the faith of a mustard seed. Not only can an idea change your mind, it can take over pretty quickly.

I think of the scene in the Hiayo Miyazaki movie, “My Neighbor Totoro” where seeds are planted at night with a bit of music and dancing, and a huge tall tree grows instantly, carrying children up to the sky, just for fun.  Because they are children, hungry for magic and eager to fly, it all happens.

Consider that your way of being in the world, is like the good soil, and take a moment to add in you intention – your favorite feeling- you rseed, and know that this is the magic that causes flowers to bloom and fruit to grow.

Make it exactly what you want it to be.

Blessed Be.