Letting Go – Day 6
Letting Go – Day 6
By Jenny Griffin
Systems of Nature: The Plant World
No matter where we are in the world, plants can teach us incredible lessons about the nature of letting go. In the harshest of conditions, they eke out an existence and send their seeds out before they die. They don’t plan where the seeds will fall, for instance, how they will be distributed evenly among the many potential fertile spots. They produce them, let them go and continue living (or dying). Some seeds will take root, others won’t. Some will be carried by nature’s forces to new environments, perhaps starting the process of ecological succession elsewhere. They don’t cling to their seeds fiercely, batting off those who wish to steal them for themselves. For the most part, they offer them up freely, to birds, bees, wind and rain, for redistribution and possibly even cross-pollination. They don’t ask to be referenced as the original contributor of that particular seed, so that all may know who was responsible for that small part of creation.
When we try to attribute these human tendencies to apparently non-sentient beings, it comes out sounding almost ridiculous. Yet how does it not sound ridiculous when we attribute them to ourselves? Why are we so attached to the things we believe we have created? Why do we cling fiercely to external or material expressions of wealth, status or value? We are a part of the same system that nature is, a part of the whole, incredible organism that is Creation.
