Trees, Trolls and Transformation

Chicago Intensive

June 5th - 8th, 2025

Week One of our Pre-study Time together - Gardens

Dear Retreatants,

It has long been my desire to visit the most beautiful gardens in the world, to spend time in deep contemplation of the symbolism of the garden, trees, plants and birds. The garden is first mentioned in the book of Genesis and is a symbol in all the major spiritual traditions of the beauty and peace, of the eternal state of our consciousness - in other words, of the enlightened state.

It represents the cultivation of the wilderness, the forest, i.e. the natural animal instincts of our human state. It is the ordering of the inner chaos, the taming of the wild and the befriending of the beasts and trolls that inhabit the untamed and unaware psyche until all aspects of self can live in harmony and peace within. it represents the final process of the long gardening exercise of our own personal lives. We plant and nurture, prune and cut back, transplant and re-pot, rearrange and create paths, sanctuaries, places of inner beauty, calm and repose until we have the garden of our consciousness free of dis-ease, bearing fruit and flowers, flowing with streams of tinkling water and fountains of sparkling beauty, deep lakes and green trees that offer sanctuary to every aspect of our created selves.

Consider the picture of the Christian idea of the lion and the lamb - the symbol of God living together with the innocence/ignorance of humans. In other words, our own consciousness living in harmony with even the youngest most innocent part of ourselves. This is really just the same symbolism as the troll living under the bridge of transformation in the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff, in the beautiful countryside of Norway, where the fairy tale originated. Each age must be in relationship with the troll of shame and fear that lurks beneath every transformation, change and move we make in life. When we think about symbols and metaphors, it is not the image or object but the meaning and principle behind them that is trying to be conveyed, in the every day experiences of human beings.

It is no mistake that the Buddha attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree - one of the most beautiful trees, in my mind in the world. We will be exploring the metaphor of the garden and trees for the next three months in our preparation to implementing many practices of meditation when we visit specific art masterpieces in the Chicago Institute of Art and then follow it up with visits to the beautiful Botanical garden and arboretum. You will be given specific and detailed instruction both on self guided explorations at the various sites as well as in the deep shadow work of group time together. We will also have some delightful time of just enjoying the pleasures of the world - good food, theatre, laughter and shared delights.

In preparation, I will be posting teachings every week from March - June for your study. I invite you to immerse yourselves in these teachings, to ask questions, to share insights with one another and to join in our group times together ahead of the experience. We highly encourage you to form informal times to discuss the teachings, the recommended books and the issues that arise, inevitably around travel and group process. An intensive like this requires effort in stretching and opening, to really contemplate metaphor and symbol as reflections of your own inner states of consciousness and stages of development, and with that effort, you will expand your own vision and awareness of how the universe operates - and you will be constantly reminded that the universe operates within your own consciousness. All manifestation lives within your own consciousness - this is a gradual realization and revelation as you gradually come to know a little more of how amazing you actually are! It is our great joy to be able to spend this deep and meaningful time with those of you that live within our own consciousness with so much love.

Contemplate the three images on the side, and truly imagine yourself in each of the situations … what temptations distract you from the ongoing knowing of your own Self as consciousness? How would you depict them? Can you befriend the distractions so that they stop pestering you? Can you slowly learn to live in harmony with all that arises within your own consciousness? This is the starting practice for the next three months.

Gardens are not made by singing, “Oh, how beautiful,” and sitting in the shade. ~Rudyard Kipling

Suggested Exercises:

Draw a plan of a garden you would create if you had unlimited resources. What are the elements you would include?

Collect pictures of gardens that appeal to you and study them - create a collage cutting out pictures from magazines.

How is the world the garden that Consciousness itself created? Contemplate this idea and see where you feel immense sorrow, remorse, regret, joy, awe, wonder, protectiveness.…

"When a garden is used as a place to pause for thought, that is when a Zen garden comes to life. When you contemplate a garden like this it will form as lasting impression on your heart."
~ Muso Soseki in The Temple in the House by Anthony Lawlor

Week Two - Trees

How do trees deal with injustice? They grow a branch wherever they are cut. And how do sparrows deal with grief? They open their tiny wings and swoop at anything that glistens. So, why am I all cut and hungry? Because I do not know the tree that is my soul and refuse the sparrow in my heart. ~unknown

Dear Retreatants,

Today Charisse and I took a hike, hmmm… more like a leisurely walk, through the “Pledge Nature Reserve,” right here in downtown Knysna. You walk from the bustling holiday town here in the Western Cape Province into a silent sanctuary of peace - a Cathedral whose structure is made up of the trees. The great Yellow woods (a relative of the redwoods), the wild figs, the mahogany and Keurbooms, overshadow the small paths weaving their way through babbling brooks and ponds, up the mountain to give you a magnificent view of the lagoon. The minute you enter this reserve you feel like whispering. It is silent other than the gurgling of water, the song of birds and the faint rustle of leaves. We spent a lovely morning, not only in nature but speaking with the volunteers that are developing this spot into a 30 acre botanical garden that will be the soul of the town of 80 000 people. Already it is a place, where once a week artists, sculptors, musicians and poets gather as a group to support each other in contemplation, sinking deep within themselves and the world soul, for inspiration and restoration. Look it up and meet Maggie, the lovely woman who volunteers there for nothing, to create this for everyone. What a beautiful vision!

https://www.pledgenaturereserve.org

And so this brings us to a contemplation of the tree - the symbol of our own life and our own death. Trees are the living symbol of our own life and death. This is a deep meditation. Please read more on the spiritual teachings here - The Tree of Life and the Tree of Death - The Cross

This teaching will include exercises, meditations and a lovely video on trees to watch with Judi Densch

Suggestion

Download the free app called Seek - this not only creates a data base and furthers research of the worlds plants, insects, birds, reptiles and trees, but it provides endless fun in knowing what you are looking at and coming to know it more intimately. It is one of the most fun treasure hunts I have ever embarked on.

Week Three - The Garden in Art

“…have a kink as solid and full of habit as the ones in the hose. Slowly I pull out the full length of the hose and lay it where it needs to be before I turn on the water. Inside, too, I must unroll my full attention. Old habits of thought twist themselves into kinks and knots. We will be forced to acknowledge this again and again.”
~Gunilla Norris, A Mystic Garden: Working with Soil, Attending to Soul

Dear Retreatants,

It has been so much fun for me to get your initial questions, comments and suggestions for our time together and to hear your insights as you see the teachings as applicable to your lived experiences of life. Thank you for your enthusiastic participation!

Our first outing together in Chicago, will be the Chicago Institute of Art and I have chosen a selection of art works related to gardens and nature, that I would suggest you research and then find in the art gallery, using each image, whether a painting, sculpure, ceramic or stained glass as a projective. This means to contemplate and explore what it reflects back to you about yourself. What does it make you think, feel, remember in your experience and inner dynamics and processes? How does it reflect something back to you that you know about within? Explore your reactions of attraction or revulsion or plain disinterest…. the question is why? What does it mean about you? The more we know about a piece of art and the artist, the more it will “speak” to you in a meaningful way, so in preparation for the experience of the actual art. As you scroll through the images, you might be puzzled as to why it is included, you might immediately like some and dislike others - each inner response is telling you something about yourself, not the art. What is this reaction telling you. Remember that art is symbolic - everything painted is symbolic of an inner meaning. For instance, the first painting in the list, is of a magnolia. This beautiful flower is imbued with meaning - if you don’t know it, research it. It might mean purity - if this is the meaning that sticks out to you, then what does purity have to do with your inner work, your inner experience? What is the opposite of purity and what does this evoke in you in terms of experience and trauma? Just that one word could give you enough work for the whole year!

To experience the art works, click here

Of course, although I will ask you to look for these paintings specifically, they will take you to parts of the gallery where you will experience way more than this small selection, so I hope it will be a rich and meaningful meditation for you all.

Week Four - The Lotus Garden

Dear Retreatants,

This story I wrote many years ago, is a metaphor for the cross. Read it carefully and see if you can understand the stages of growth and states of consciousness that are described. Read it Here. When you have read it, there is an exercise below, that would be very helpful for group discussion with one another and for self-observation in your own life or for journaling. The lotus is the flower of enlightenment in the East and the Rose in the West. Consider all the stages of growth and how one cannot exist without the other and nothing is every discarded in the growth to flowering.

Exercise:

In the Sutra in the story, what is being described is that when dark and light come from the heart it is all good. When the dark and the light come from the unaware shadow of unawareness in shame and fear, then good and bad are both “bad” and yet even this is included in the Light of Consciousness (Love). This is a high teaching on the cross - contemplate this in your own life and see if you can see the intersection of good and bad in a heart pierced open to be able to love. Out of a heart of compassion and wisdom, even what is seen by the world as “bad” actions, is truly good, and “good” actions are aligned with love. When the heart is closed to the feelings of fear and shame and there is unawareness and lack of compassion for these feelings,” good” and “bad” actions are reactive and socially bound and therefore, neither what is socially unacceptable, or acceptable, is loving or truly good and yet, it is still held within the Great Consciousness of Truth and Wisdom.

Draw a cross and explore the dualities of acceptable/unacceptable, good/bad, right/wrong - or any other duality you struggle with. How are you nailed to the heart of suffering - a heart encased by defense and filled with shame and fear? How are you on the cross of duality, but your heart has been pierced and you see with compassion and wisdom all your past actions and choices of “good” and “bad.” How have you died to the dualities and are off the cross living a life of connection, unity rooted in the compassion and wisdom born from your dark unaware suffering? Where in your journey of the cross are you as related to the growth of the lotus lily in the garden of heaven and of existence?

What actions in your life came from conformity out of fear of rejection and that you learned were “good” behaviors. How did you rebel out of anger and need to assert your ego identity that were considered “bad behaviors.” How do you still do the same things, but from a different state of consciousness. What part of the growth do the lotus do your behaviors represent?

“The great physicist Niels Bohr said, “There are two types of truth. In the shallow type, the opposite of a true statement is false. In the deeper kind, the opposite of a true statement is equally true.”
~Gunilla Norris, A Mystic Garden: Working with Soil, Attending to Soul

Week Five - Trolls

Dear Retreatants,

On our pilgrimage to Iceland in 2024, we had a lot of fun looking for trolls in the craggy volcanic mountains, waterfalls and rugged landscape - it seemed they were everywhere. They very much still dominate the psyche and mythology of the Icelandic people. Every culture has its pantheon of nearly human creatures - goblins, witches, trolls, zombies, gnomes, vampires and so on. And they all have malevolent intents some of the time and sometimes they are sent to help. So a symbol of the duality of human life, and a projection of the dualistic nature of your own ego. When we are in unaware ego consciousness we are all truly trolls - we do “good” things to serve our own sense of identity and we do “bad” things that are reactions to unaware fear and shame we all feel in this state. We do not yet know ourselves as fully divine beings in human form and so we act like trolls.

When you contemplate these beings, do you feel dread and horror, fear and revulsion or do you feel warmth, affection and amusement. Do you seek them out or do you avoid them? Do they seem big, or small and inconsequential? Consider what your relationship is to the inner trolls of your psyche. Remember the external representations are only symbols of an inner dynamic within you. Unfortunately the troll exhibit at the Morton Arboretum was dismantled in 2021, but I encourage you to seek for your own trolls as you stroll through the trees.

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

I am sure all of you know the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. If you are not acquainted with it I highly recommend your read this Norwegian folktale and deeply contemplate the meaning of it in your own life. Remember in any good story or myth, every player, dynamic and symbol is representing some aspect of you and your own inner relationship to the different aspects. I read this story so often to my children when they were little that it worked on my psyche for years until I found the troll under the bridge in every experience of my own life.

Trolls of hidden shame and nastiness are most often found at points of transition and stress represented in the story by the bridge. If we are not aware of our feelings, they threaten to emerge from under the bridge of transition and change, threatening to gobble us up in their fear, anger, shame and frustration. We are seeing a lot of troll behavior right now in the uncertainty of the massive changes occurring in our society. And it doesn’t matter how old you are, the Troll always shows up. When we are very young we rush to get to the other side of the bridge because we cannot yet deal with the huge deep, hidden feelings of shame that lurk in the river of consciousness beneath our waking life. Even as teenagers and young adults, we cannot face the feelings and past experiences that gave rise to them. It is only when we have the wisdom of age, represented by the great horns and long beard of the last billy goat Gruff, that we can face the feelings, the past emotions and experiences head on and bring compassion, wisdom and limit to the acting out trolls of our hidden emotions. We need to be in relationship with our trolls with warmth, limit, kindness and understanding. We need to tame them - not get rid of them. Then they become human expressions and aspects of self that we relate to with humor, affection and most certainly limit. If we are big enough in knowing ourselves in consciousness, then they pop up as small and rather insignificant aspects of living in the world.

“ You are not the troll. The troll of feeling, thought and behavior arises within you as function, not identity.”

Exercise

In the next week, notice every time an inner troll rears his ugly head up from the unconscious in terrifying shame, fear and anger. Notice if you ignore, suppress, rush on, allow it to act out, or face it square on. If you can catch one and face it head on, see how would you represent it. Draw a picture, create a collage, journal, write a poem, take a picture and share with the group your experience and representation of it. What was the transition? What feelings arose? How did you relate to the feelings? How did you befriend the troll?

Recreate the story using yourself using your own symbols. Three sisters and the wicked witch, or Three little bunnies and the fox, or three little pigs and the big bad wolf….. What appeals to you given your cultural milieu and upbringing.

Week Six - Lessons from Trees

Dear Retreants,

We just concluded our first meeting together and many insights, questions and observations were shared - it awakens me to the inner joy of connection at a level not often encountered - thank you all for your profound and deep sharing. One participant talked of his love of trees and hugging the cottonwoods on his land. I too love cottonwoods - one of the most beautiful sights of the American landscape, and yet, in my neighborhood I have heard a great deal of troll-complaining about how “messy” they are with no appreciation of the proliferation of millions of seeds parachuting on cotton fluff, that fill the air to land on some fertile piece of soil to start to grow into a small sapling that becomes a magnificent and beautiful tree. I hear the same thing in South Africa about the gorgeous Jacaranda trees that blossom prolifically in spring and drop their flowers creating great shadows of deep purple under them. A “mess” or utter beauty? For such beauty, such joy, I gladly clean up the “mess.”

I have thought about why people would instantly “hate” something so beautiful. Take a moment to examine this tendency in yourself. Why do you complain about a mess? Why do you judge it? Why would someone call the proliferation of beautiful wind born fluff balls of potential new life, “a mess?” Why is chaos frightening?

How were you shamed as a child for “making a mess?” Think of an instance and see if you can analyze the parental attitude, feelings, belief system and needs that would have created their response to you. What did you internalize from that experience? How are you still reactive to “messes,” instead of open and accepting of whatever occurs externally and internally? As long as you cannot accept every aspect of the dual nature of creation, you cannot be free - you will be nailed to the cross of suffering, feeling shame and anger when things are not the way you want them to be.

Babies bring poopy diapers, orgasms come with exploding “messes” just like the cottonwoods. Messy bloody birth comes with messy stinky death. Creating art results in lots of messes that require cleaning up. Mistakes and bad behavior require cleaning up your mess with apology and self responsibility that results in new growth. Catherine share with me years ago that the mighty Redwoods on the west coast need fire to release the seeds from their cones. The burning of the fire is not a “mess,”but a necessity of life.There is not one without the other. Think of all the ways you crave on one side and how you reject the other side. You want creation on your terms, just as parents wanted children on their own terms.

Can you find the beauty underlying it all and accept the manifestations of creation and messy chaos in your life without comment, without resentment, without judgement and transform your judgments into wonder, questions, searching and finally understanding that leads to acceptance. You may always have preferences, but you will not suffer the intensity of shame and fear that comes from the resistance of seeing deeply and accepting it all - and if it is unity and salvation - at-one-ness - we seek, then we must accept it all with compassion and wisdom.

Exercise

Notice in the weeks to come all your anger, irritation and resentment at having to “clean up,” what your regard as a mess that either you or someone else makes, and rewrite your inner script about it from the heart of compassion and the insight of wisdom. We look forward to hearing your stories.

Consider a world in which there were no cottonwoods and no jacarandas, or any other plant that made a “mess.”

Choose one mess you have made and clean it up, notice the complaining and resistance, and do it anyway.

Research everything you know about a favorite tree - including the “messes” they make. What arises out of the mess?

"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself." - Eleanor Roosevelt

"Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to error that counts." - Nikki Giovanni

"Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow." - Mary Tyler Moore

Watch this video - youtube - the messiness of trees

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAsgDulyCrU

As you watch this short video, what feelings and judgments arise within you regarding the arborist and the people who hack trees? Are you choosing an external side, or seeing deeply within yourself? Do you identify with the neighbor, the arborist or the tree - you are all three, remember! This video will stir up an inner response - what inner work do you need to do? Pruning is a necessary part of gardening. However this is not pruning, it is hacking. What is the difference? What needs pruning inside of you for you to grow really well? How have you hacked at yourself which has only made the whole system sick and debilitated and has inhibited growth? How will you do it and from what state of consciousness?

Week Seven - GOOD TIMBER

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease,
The stronger wind, the stronger trees,
The further sky, the greater length,
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.

~Douglas Malloch

This poem speaks to the truth of all growth, whether in trees or whether in ourselves. I often hear the question about why some people grow and evolve, expand and self-actualize and others do not. There are two essentials - one is enough hardship, suffering and difficulty in life to push us forwards from behind, and enough desire, longing and vision to pull us forward. The photograph above is taken in the foot mountains of the Himalayas in Bhutan. The size and magnificence of these trees are not done justice by the snapshot. The terrain is rugged, mountainous, rocky and the climate extremely harsh and yet the green life force within the trees has persevered against all odds and the result is beautiful beyond measure, as it is in each of you. With the right ratio of suffering and longing, both trees and humans can put down deep roots and grow to great heights. Consider for a moment if the suffering is too great and too prolonged. What can happen to the life force? What if there is great vision and great desire, but no perseverance, drive and momentum of discipline and struggle? How has this manifested in your own life? On what did you just give up? How did you persevere in other ways despite difficulties and set backs?

Consider for a moment what nurtured your early life so that you could put down deep roots. What was in the soil that gave you the foundation in which you are rooted? What were the external environmental forces of your life that challenged you - physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. Did your growth become stunted in some ways? Did some branches die and others grow to compensate? Is a tree that is perfectly formed really as beautiful as one that has grown gnarled, healed scars in the bark, battled the elements, survived the onslaughts of man and beast? One of my favorite trees is the baobab - it is often deeply scarred by elephants who drive their tusks into the soft bark to get nutrients and stored water. How have you been deeply scarred by the needs and demands of others when you were to young to protect yourself? Has the wound healed into a beautiful scarring - a symbol of initiation to growth?

“The leaf of every tree brings a message from the unseen world. Look every fallen leaf is a blessing.” ~Rumi

Vilancula - Mozambique - 2023

https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_simard_how_trees_talk_to_each_other - Watch this video and consider what connects all humans? How are we one organism at a very deep level? How is the destruction of forests mirroring our own inner destruction and so our outer destruction? Who are the “mother trees” in our human world. How are they being cut down?

The Garden - Seeds and Seed Pods

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZgowtRZbao

F rog was in his garden. Toad came walking by. “What a fine garden you have, Frog,” he said.

“Yes,” said Frog. “It is very nice, but it was hard work.”

“I wish I had a garden,” said Toad.

“Here are some flower seeds. “Plant them in the ground,” said Frog,“and soon you will have a garden.”

“How soon?” asked Toad.

“Quite soon,” said Frog.

Toad ran home. He planted the flower seeds.

“Now seeds,” said Toad, “start growing.”

Toad walked up and down a few times. The seeds did not start to grow. Toad put his head close to the ground and said loudly, “Now seeds, start growing!” Toad looked at the ground again. The seeds did not start to grow. Toad put his head very close to the ground and shouted, “NOW SEEDS, START GROWING!”

Frog came running up the path. “What is all this noise?” he asked.

“My seeds will not grow,” said Toad.

“You are shouting too much,” said Frog. “These poor seeds are afraid to grow.”

“My seeds are afraid to grow?” asked Toad.

“Of course,” said Frog. “Leave them alone for a few days. Let the sun shine on them, let the rain fall on them. Soon your seeds will start to grow.”

That night Toad looked out of his window. “Drat!” said Toad. “My seeds have not started to grow. They must be afraid of the dark.” Toad went into his garden with some candles. “I will read the seeds a story,” said Toad. “Then they will not be afraid.” Toad read a long story to his seeds. All the next day Toad sang songs to his seeds. And all the next day Toad read poems to his seeds. And all the next day Toad played music for his seeds. Toad looked at the ground. The seeds still did not start to grow.

“What shall I do?” cried Toad. “These must be the most frightened seeds in the whole world!” Then Toad felt very tired, and he fell asleep.

“Toad, Toad, wake up,” said Frog.

“Look at your garden!”

Toad looked at his garden.

Little green plants were coming up out of the ground.

“At last,” shouted Toad, “my seeds have stopped being afraid to grow!”

“And now you will have a nice garden too,” said Frog.

“Yes,” said Toad, “but you were right Frog. It was very hard work.”

~Arnold Lobel

Questions:

What messages are you are getting from this story? What did toad need to learn? What qualities did he need to develop?

What is the sun in this story? Rain? Earth? Garden?

What is required for growth to happen?

Whose need was Toad trying to get met? What was his need?

How was he feeling?

What beliefs did he have that informed his behavior?

How often do you see parenting like this?

How often do you relate to yourself in this way? Can you give an example?

How often do you relate to your clients in this way?

How hard have you worked to make them grow? How does this feel? What happened?

How did toad feel when he didn’t see the seeds growing?

Is there something “wrong” with what Toad was doing to get his seeds to grow?

How does this challenge your beliefs about your role as a therapist/healer?

How was toad projecting on to the seeds in his garden?

Is our perception always accurate?

What must happen to a seed before it shows above ground?

How have you experienced this in your own life?

What might hinder the growth of the little sprouts in toad’s garden if he doesn’t learn his lesson?

“A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible.”
~ Welsh proverb

As you explore the gardens keep your eyes open for seed pods and seeds and use them as a deep contemplation of what the seeds represent metaphorically and symbolically.
What have been seeds in your life that have grown - into either weeds or beautiful plants, or mighty trees?
Take pictures of seeds and seed pods. Use the picture to journal, write poetry, do art - let the seeds grow within you.
Look up each plant of the seed you find and find out how that seed propagates and how it has to break open and suffer in order to grow. What suffering has caused you to crack
open and start growing?
Read the quotes below. Which one speaks to you at this time. Use the quote and the picture in some creative way and make it a gift for someone on the Chicago Intensive.
May your offering be a seed in their life.
Even if seeds do not grow for themselves, they are nutrition for others. Consider all the foods that are seeds.
Study each seed pod for its sacred geometry - notice the circles within circles, the number 9 in the lotus seed pod. What does it all point to inside of you?

“Might I,” quavered Mary, “might I have a bit of earth?” “Earth!” he repeated. “What do you mean?” “To plant seeds in — to make things grow — to see them come alive.” ~Frances H. Burnett, The Secret Garden

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant." ~Robert Louis Stevenson

"Tomorrow, our seeds will grow. All we need is dedication." ~Lauryn Hill

"Just as you would not neglect seeds that you planted with hope that they will bear vegetables and fruits and flowers, so must you attend to nourish the garden of your becoming." ~Jean Houston

" The fact that I can plant a seed, and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises."
~ Leo Buscaglia

"Whatever our dreams, ideas or projects, we plant a seed, nurture it and then reap the fruits of our labor." ~Oprah Winfrey

"The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?" ~Jack Kornfield

"An ordinary favor we do for someone or any compassionate reaching out may seem to be going nowhere at first but may be planting a seed we can't see right now. Sometimes we need to just do the best we can and then trust in an unfolding we can't design or ordain."~Sharon Salzberg

"Every leaf that grows will tell you: what you sow will bear fruit, so if you have any sense my friend, don't plant anything but Love." ~Rumi

"Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance. This is the law of nature." ~Steve Maraboli

"Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another." ~Napoleon Hill

"I would like to believe when I die that I have given myself away like a tree that sows seed every spring and never counts the loss, because it is not loss, it is adding to future life. It is the tree's way of being. Strongly rooted perhaps, but spilling out its treasure on the wind." ~May Sarton

"You cannot transmit wisdom and insight to another person. The seed is already there. A good teacher touches the seed, allowing it to wake up, to sprout, and to grow." ~Nhat Hanh

"Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant — a seed — this plants the giant miracle." ~Ann Voskamp

"Legacy. What is a legacy? It's planting seeds in a garden you never get to see." ~Hamilton, the Musical

"Life is the soil, our choices, and actions the sun and rain, but our dreams are the seeds." ~ Richard Paul Evans

“Your mind is a garden. Your thoughts are the seeds. The harvest can either be flowers or weeds.” ~William Wordsworth

“You never quite know what you do in life that leaves a seed behind that grows into an oak tree.” ~Michael Portillo

“We can’t change people, but we can plant seeds that may one day bloom in them.” ~Mary Davis

For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.” ~Cynthia Occelli

“The seeds of resilience are planted in the way we process the negative events in our lives.” ~ Sheryl Sandberg

“When your heart is broken, you plant seeds in the cracks and pray for rain.” ~Andrea Gibson

“Love is the seed of all hope. It is the enticement to trust, to risk, to try, to go on.” ~Gloria Gaither

“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.” ~Henry David Thoreau

“A seed knows how to wait… a seed is alive while it waits.” ~Hope Jahren

“You plant seeds every single day, in the world and in others, with every thought you think and word you speak and action you take. You have influence. You’re making a dent in the universe, and you matter, in a very real way.” ~Jennifer Williamson

Taproot - feelings and needs - hidden (but never separated) beneath in the soil (body) in the unconscious

Leaves, branches, stems, thorns etc. - thoughts and actions - visible and obvious in awareness above the unconscious

Flowers natural expression of Spirit/Life Force inherent in the seed that grew and that will result in more seeds

Seeds - Spread by the wind to give rise to new plants of the same kind if given the right conditions

What kind of plant are you? What seeds are you spreading? How do you practice seeing deeper than the obvious?

“A seed neither fears light nor darkness, but uses both to grow.” ~Matshona Dhliwayo

“In every forest, on every farm, in every orchard on earth, it’s what’s under the ground that creates what’s above the ground.

That’s why placing your attention on the fruits that you have already grown is futile.

You cannot change the fruits that are already hanging on the tree. You can, however, change tomorrow’s fruits.

But to do so, you will have to dig below the ground and strengthen the roots.”

~T. Harv Eker