I got into growing my own vegetables back in the early aughts and as hobbies often do with me, that quickly escalated into a fascination with permaculture, land replenishment, food preservation, and more. I joke regularly that as a Gemini the two personalities present in me are an outgoing public speaker and performer, and a farmer who wants to be left alone with her plants. It’s a funny thing to balance.
I talk about my garden a good deal on social media and the upshot of that has been lots of people asking me about starting to grow their own food. I think it’s a great idea. I find growing a lot of what my family eats to be very satisfying. But beginning gardeners often look at the price difference between starting their own seeds versus buying already-growing seedlings and want to start with seeds. And I get it. But starting seeds and getting them safely to the point of harvest is more complex than it sounds.
Video games frequently have difficulty settings at which they can be played that increase the challenge of the game. Those settings are often labeled easy, medium, hard, and legendary. Growing a garden from seed is playing gardening on legendary.
The work of springtime, of growth, is real work. I think it’s a useful thing to remember right now when just surviving, much less growth, can feel like an uphill fight. The continuing destruction of our democracy is horrifying. My queer friends and I are all trying to figure out where we can go and where we will be safe should our worst fears come to pass. As the famous Warsan Shire poem says, “no one leaves home/unless home is the mouth of a shark.” And right now, the teeth feel very close.
And also, the spinning wheel of fortune continues to turn. People are fighting back. We are organizing. Just this week a senator broke the filibuster record speaking on behalf of democracy and human rights. Not all hope is lost. And one potent and powerful act of rebellion is the planting of seeds. Starting something – a garden, a project, a dream – is a brave promise to the future. That act says “I will be there. And I will be working. I will be thriving.”
As a Pagan, my spirituality and approach to life is largely informed by natural cycles. I look for patterns in the natural world and seek to understand and replicate them in my practice. Seeds and the growth of them are rich with possibility for understanding. For taking lessons of resilience and strength. There’s a reason seeds are used as allegories and metaphors so frequently.
The first thing a seed needs in order to grow is soil. But not just any soil will cause a seed to thrive. Soil is made up of an incredible number of substances that bring various blessings and challenges to the work of growth. Soil that has been contaminated with runoff from industrial processes will be unhealthy. Soil degraded from overuse will not be productive. Soil rich in microorganisms and nutrients and decaying organic matter will feed a seed what it needs to grow well. The environment in which we are planted, and into which we plant, determines how we grow.
So the first lesson to take in terms of growing more resilient is looking at what we’re rooted in. What soil surrounds you? What is home like right now? Is it somewhere you can sleep easily and peacefully? Is home set up to be a refuge from the world? A place you can safely open and allow tender shoots to grow strong?
Just as soil can become contaminated with destructive substances, so can our home environments. This contamination can take many forms, some more fixable than others. As you begin to spiral out into springtime, consider what you can do to make your soil more supportive. In gardening we call this soil amendment. We look at what’s missing and add the nutrients or substances that will help. Can home become even safer and more peaceful? Can you make some of your daily tasks easier through better planning or organization? Do you need better boundaries about how much of the outside world gets let in? Or better filtering so that bad feelings have a safe and healthy way to get out rather than fester?
Sometimes soil gets overfarmed. This experience of having fewer resources to draw on is true for a lot of people right now – we’re trying to grow while also in an exhausted state. The constant need for productivity and income generation required to survive late stage failed capitalism means many of us are growing from depleted soil. Although the national issues are not fixable by one individual, notice the moments when you do feel better and start noting what’s happening in them. Sometimes a simple shift of doing a little bit more of what makes you feel better is enough to let a seedling grow stronger.
I recently shifted my schedule to include a little more of what feels good. I normally take a lunch break and read. This week, I started eating more quickly and then heading outside to do a little light land maintenance. Mostly just picking up the sticks the winter winds knocked down. But I noticed how much better I felt, so I’ve continued the practice.
Start to notice the difference between what replenishes you, and what simply pauses your mood and mindset. For me, scrolling social media is a pause. When I come back from that break, my mood and energy levels are the same as when I started. Walking outside replenishes me. When I return from that break, my energy levels and mood are improved. By focusing on more of that latter category and less of the former, I can amend the metaphorical soil I’m planted in a bit more.
The next thing a seed needs in order to grow is light. Illumination. Whether from grow-lights indoors or from the radiant star at the center of our solar system, living beings need brightness. On a very practical level humans really do need sunlight. I’m always a little bemused that with all my years of therapy and self-work, I’m still a lot more cheerful on sunny days than gray ones. Despite my fascination with all things ancient Scandinavia, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to cope with the Nordic winters simply due to the lack of sunlight. It’s very telling that in so many end of the world myth cycles, one of the first things that happens is that the sun disappears.
So, where is your light coming from? It is so easy right now to focus on all that is wrong, on all that is dark in the world, but in order to be resilient we need to be illuminated regularly. This can take many different forms. For some of us, it’s our spiritual path and the experience of union with the spiritual sources we honor. For others, it is the reading of inspirational words and poetry. Rumi. Mary Oliver. Maya Angelou. Amanda Gorman. We can find illumination in the good works of others both large and small. The family-run restaurant who gives food to those who need it. The local charity that provides transitional housing to help people get back on their feet. Here in Hagerstown, the Creek Cleanup Project has been organizing people to pick up trash in our area, healing one little chunk of land at a time. We can find illumination on a national level through the many incredible organizations rallying people together on behalf of human rights. And, this week, through the work of one senator who spoke truth to power for over 25 hours. The stories are out there – we just have to choose to find them. And as we do so, we should also remember to get out and into the sunlight when we can.
Good soil and sunlight will help a seed grow, but not without water. Water makes the cells in plants strong and flexible. It supports the process of transformation within a plant – the wonder of photosynthesis that turns sunlight into life. Water makes up a seedling’s circulatory system. It brings in nutrients, carries away waste, and transports resources to where they are most needed. Water is a connection point as well. One of the often-overlooked miracles on this planet is that there is no new water. We have the same water that was here two thousand years ago, and that will be here two thousand years from now. Water is the element that most inspires resiliency in growing beings. To be resilient is to be both strong and flexible, to be able to recover after a challenge and step back into the growing cycle.
So, how are you being watered? How are you feeding your own strength and flexibility? Resilience is not immunity to challenge and pain. It is the response to hardship. People with more resilience are able to respond to and recover from setbacks due to a reserve of inner strength. People with less resilience can get stuck on problems or enter a cycle where every new setback both major and minor feels like some sort of coordinated attack being led by a nefarious universe.
The good news is that even if we have lower levels of resilience than we’d like, there are shifts we can make to encourage greater resiliency. The first general recommendation is something you’re doing right now – getting connected to other people. Over and over again, in all the studies and articles on resilience, we see building strong, healthy relationships with other people as vital to resilience. In gardening, we seek to grow different species of plants together that support each other. The First Nations triad of the Three Sisters – corn, beans, and squash – is a classic example. We grow basil with our tomatoes. Garlic with our roses. Marigolds turn their sunny faces to the sky in the vegetable bed. These plants are strengthened by growing close to each other. We, too, can grow stronger and more resilient through our community connections, friendships, and deep bonds with each other. We truly are better together.
Along with circulating nutrients, we circulate stories through our minds. When we survive a challenge, even by the skin of our teeth, the story we tell ourselves about the experience afterwards can vary in terms of tone. I am the survivor of an abusive marriage. That story is full of darkness and pain, but the most important part of that story is the part where I survived. Where I came out the other side of it. And that piece – survival and the life I’ve built since becoming free – is the story I tell myself. When I catch myself ruminating on some of the hard things that happened during those years of darkness, I shift to focusing on what is real now, and the story of triumph that brought me to this present moment. Likewise, when I have an unusually hard day, I remember all that I survived. Along with that bad first marriage I survived boot camp in the Marine Corps. I survived the pandemic. I survived being an incredibly weird teenager in a time period that didn’t tolerate uniqueness. I remind myself that my story is one of resilience. By changing the narrative I’m better able to respond to challenges, to see the way forward, or simply to shift my focus from what is beyond my influence to what I can impact, no matter how small. Consider the stories you’re circulating and whether you can shift the tone of them. You have survived every bad day or bad month or bad year in order to arrive in this present moment. You carry within you an extraordinarily powerful tale of resilience.
The growing season calls us to heed the cycle of growth once more. To honor the work of dreaming the future and planting the seeds that will bear the fruit of the world to come. In every moment, there is an opportunity to begin again, and one of those pivot points is here now. What do you wish to begin? What seeds do you want to plant? What garden would you see growing here on earth?
Tend to the soil. Amend your home life to be more nourishing, peaceful, and safe. Tend to the light. Bask in the radiance of bright words, hopeful actions, and light made manifest both large and small. Tend to the water. Pay attention to the story you circulate. Grow strong connections with others.
The work of growth is real work and it will take all of us to build the world to come. By focusing on resiliency we can center ourselves in the outward spiral and stand tall even when the spring winds blow.
This sermon was offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Hagerstown on Sunday, April 6th, 2025.
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