the courage of the seed

  Mark Nepo writes: 

"All the buried seeds crack open in the dark the instant they surrender to a process they can't see.  

What a powerful lesson is the beginning of spring.  All around us, everything small and buried surrenders to a process that none of the buried parts can see.  And this innate surrender allows everything edible and fragrant to break ground into a life of light that we call spring.  In nature we are quietly given countless models of how to give ourselves over to what appears dark and hopeless, but which ultimately is an awakening that is beyond all imagining. . . . 

As a seed buried in the earth cannot imagine itself as an orchid or hyacinth, neither can a heart packed with hurt imagine itself loved or at peace.  The courage of the seed is that once cracking, it cracks all the way."