Sunday, July 15, 2012

Patience in Growth


When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice it is small, but we do not criticize it as "rootless and stemless." We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed.

When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don't condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; we do not criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place, and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development.

The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change: Yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.

A flower is not better when it blooms than when it is merely a bud; at each stage it is the same thing . . . a flower in the process of expressing its potential.

-Timothy Gallway

Likewise, each of us is a god in embryo. We do not need to lament the fact that we have not bloomed yet to reach our full potential--rather, we need to recognize what it is that we were born to become and "stand in wonder at the process taking place."

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