I Want to Be a Plant

I want to show you something. 

These are apples.

:) Uh, duh Esther. 

They make a really beautiful picture, don't they? But that's not why I bring them up. I'm actually much more interested in the Blue Vervain that is going to seed and covering the path above these apples. This is my first year growing vervain and I didn't know what to expect from the plant (funny story, these plants almost died this spring. I planted them in the shade -- they DO NOT like shade -- and they essentially died (no growth, dry roots) but in one last attempt to save them I moved them to a sunny spot and a few weeks later they grew! Just like my blueberry bushes they really, really wanted to grow. I just had to give them a chance.)

My favorite part of growing new plants is when they seed in fall. Ever since I first discovered where to look for seeds in herbs and flowers I have been addicted to seed hunting and harvesting. It is ridiculously fun to look at a plant after it's flowered and discover how and where it stores its seeds. I harvested some white 4-o-clock flower seeds earlier this year and they're the funniest barrel shape (about 1 cm across) that hides out in a nondescript green...thing. I had to study the plant for half an hour to figure out where the seeds were. I kept getting confused and distracted because I thought I knew where the seeds would be but they were not where I expected. 

Distractions aside, I was thrilled to discover today that the vervain was ready for a seed harvest. The flower stalks which were kind of gray/yellow/green a month ago had become a coppery brown (I can't seem to get away from copper). Excited, I pulled my hand out of its glove and pinched off about 1 inch of one of the flower stalks, rubbing the dry thing between my fingers and letting the chaff pile into my open palm. Except that the chaff was far too uniform. I wasn't removing chaff. I was dropping seeds.

Shocked, I looked closer at the flower head and realized that what I had thought were small balls of seeds perhaps 1 mm across were actually seed baskets (that's what I call them) filled with tons of miniature seeds. 

Assuming this picture is high enough quality and that you can see the ball shapes I'd assumed were seeds, you can probably do the math. The millions. Millions! of seeds to be harvested from this vervain patch. 

I shouldn't have been surprised. Honestly, I should have expected it. Over the last two years I've harvested seeds from numerous and varied plants. Yet no matter how many times I harvest seeds, no matter how many different species I collect, I am still awe-struck when I see how much seed abundance each plant produces. 

It's flabbergasting (to put it mildly). 

I think it's because plants hide their seeds so well. You usually can't see the seeds by just glancing at the plant. You've got to look for them. Hunt for them. I went digging through a dried thistle flower this year to unearth the seeds that were buried so deep in thistle down I literally could not see them without pulling the flower apart. And then, when you do find them the sheer quantity of seeds is so unexpected.

The abundance. A literal representation of blessings so numerous you will not have room to receive them. 

Nothing is more likely to make me emotional than harvesting seeds. I stand in awe of God as I turn over a seed head and watch the seeds literally rain down over the ground, my clothes, my palm, and into bucket after bucket. 

After a growing season of incredible greenery that will produce more the more you harvest, plants end the year with one last hurrah as they provide enough seeds to cover acres of ground the next year.

Strange as it sounds, I want to be like my plants when I grow up. 

- I want to have a desire to grow. And not just a desire to grow, but a love of growing that is so strong that not even darkness, feeling overshadowed, cold (and cold shoulders), and being drowned and overwhelmed can stop me from growing and thriving the moment I find a source of constant light.

- I want to give and thrive more the more I am cut back and be grateful for the setbacks because they make it possible for me to do what I love best--grow. 

- I want to absorb sunlight, welcome rain, and keep my arms and heart open to everything I receive. 

- I want to live with no thought for tomorrow. I want to grow without fear of frost, without hiding from hail (hardship), without worrying about winter. And then, when frost, hail, and winter do come, I want to figure out how to survive them and come back, even in the dead of winter emerging from a blanket of snow. 

- I want to know I'm beautiful even though I'm not symmetrical or even close to perfect.

- I want the gifts of my life to produce abundantly and spread like seeds everywhere I go.

- I want every aspect of who I am, how I live, and what I do to testify of God and Christ, to remind people of abundance, to speak of love--love of life, of God, of other, of self. 

Yes, I want to be a plant. But, since I can't be a plant, I grow plants -- more than one hundred of them -- and smile every time they remind me how lucky I am to be a person in God's garden where He, as master gardener, gives abundantly, tends lovingly, and loves tenderly.