Guest post
by Ritu Gupta
I love gardening. I plant my seeds and nurture them through the most delicate stage of their evolution. I plant them in nutrient rich soil and water them sparingly. I put them in a warm and sunny spot and let them cook.
The seeds discover their own truth within and believe in it strongly enough to break through the soil that cocoons. They learn to grow within, expanding their roots so that they can stand tall expressing their own authentic natures.
I know that my job is to provide them with a balanced environment which is neither too friendly, nor too hostile. They need some hostility to nurture their fighting spirit which spurs their growth; they need enough nurturing to value their world. They need both: a world that is worth the fight, and a fight that is worth the world.
When they are strong enough, I plant them outdoors. I still watch over them. I fertilize them, stake them, weed around them and then they reward me with their harvest of flowers, fruits and vegetables.
It is magical to see those tiny seeds use nothing but soil, water and sun to create and deliver for my nutrition the flowers, fruits and vegetables that end up in my harvest basket, in my vase, and on my kitchen table. Each one is a product of its own authentic nature.
This same magic can be created by us when we take the seeds of our ideas and sow them within the fertility of our mind. Then we expose our minds to the light of knowledge and sprinkle with the waters of discipline. We rotate our minds absorbing the light of knowledge to strengthen those ideas that carry the kernel of truth within them.
We recognize and plant this truth within the sacred ground of our imagination and grow the courage to break out of the muck of conformity to speak of it in authentic notes. We exercise discipline with caution – too much disciple will crowd out our authenticity, and too little discipline will stunt it.
Once our ideas grow to sapling lengths sheltered within our minds, we create an external garden to nurture them further. We wait till the environment is conducive to the saplings. We prepare a planting bed – a space to write in, a studio to paint, a class to join. We learn slowly how we can grow our ideas into yielding the fruit of our dreams. We spin a metaphor and color a canvas. We chisel a smile and frame a sentence. We take the beauty of our creativity and nourish our souls.
As it is with seeds, so it is with ideas. Fruit of the former nourishes the body; and of the latter nourishes the soul.
Then we manifest our ideas by planting the saplings from our mind into the external world and its hostilities. We are ready to face the naysayers who undermine us and critics who denigrate us. We are eager to stand up to the competition that stands up to us. Yet – no one knows us till we market ourselves.
We tout our babies on a blog, twitter it to the birds to cross-pollinate them, hope for them to be “liked”. We, with our little kitchen gardens – testamentary evidence to our love for organically grown nutrition, are expected to abandon our joys of authentic creation to participate in a market where genetically mutated processed foods packaged with contrary labels and sold to the tune of irrelevant jingles would yield a bounty that only 1% of us will reap.
The rest of us 99% will just end up with sore hearts that nurtured that dream to fruition, but were not heard in the cacophony and so were unable to share our harvest with others.
For us Indie authors, each day is a struggle to rise above our own anonymity, while still holding on to the joy of our creativity without being uprooted from our authenticity.
May the world we encounter be worthy of this fight; and may this fight be worthy of our world.
Ritu K Gupta is author of “Awakening”, the first book in the “Revealing Colors” series. This fascinating story that combines ancient wisdom with modern times is set in Toronto but travels across three worlds: the material, the illusionary and the timeless.
Rooted to her land of birth, India, and tied to her adoptive country Canada where she has lived for the past 25 plus years, Ritu combines her experiences and beliefs to weave a seamless story that will awaken your imagination and change the way you view the world. Read more from Ritu at her website. Buy “Awakening” on Amazon.
Nice analogy, Ritu. And sometimes, if not often, what we get in the end isn’t quite what we aimed for when we planted that seed. In my experience, when that happens, it’s even better and more beautiful.
Hi Yvonne – I agree. We may not know the evolution of the stories when we start writing them, but the stories seem to realize themselves anyway 🙂 Thanks for your comment.
Beautiful, Ritu. May both of your gardens bloom. 🙂
Thanks Lynne. And the same to you! 🙂
Beautiful, Ritu. It is, sometimes, difficult to not get lulled into the commercialism jingling away at our creative minds, to sit patiently and wait for our miracles to bloom. I recently have been undergoing this problem, and your post came at just the right time to remind me to wait and water and nurture instead of just jumping for the “now” of genetically-modified.
Thanks BCBrownBooks. To me, writing is essentially an organic process. You follow your muse. Marketing is a commercial process. Balancing the two processes can be a challenge!
very good analogy.
Thanks J.M.Wiilamson.
This is such an eloquent post. Your words took me on a beautiful journey. Thank you.
Hi Aronjoice – I’m glad you enjoyed the journey!
I’m a gardener too, and I can so relate to this lovely analogy.
Thanks Acflory! Always a pleasure meeting a fellow gardener. 🙂
As both farmer and author, I completely understand.