The seed was there first.
Before the roots knew how deep they would reach.
Before the stem knew how to follow the sunlight.
Before the flower ever knew of its colour.
There was only a seed, buried in the dark.
And the seed had to break.
We spend so much of our lives believing that breaking means something has gone wrong. We hold ourselves together long after we've outgrown our own edges, afraid that if we crack open, we will somehow become less than what we were.
But a seed cannot become while remaining whole.
It must break to find its beginning.
And it does so in complete darkness, without ever having seen the flower it carries inside itself.
There is something beautiful about that kind of trust.
The seed does not know what waits above the soil. It doesn't know the warmth of the sun or the feeling of rain against its petals. It has never seen spring. It has no proof that there is light somewhere beyond all that earth.
And still, it opens.
And before it reaches upward, it reaches down.
Roots pushing quietly into the darkness, finding their way through heavy soil, around stones, searching for water, nourishment, and something strong enough to hold what has not yet grown.
No one sees this.
We see the flower.
We admire the bloom, the colour, the way its face turns toward the sun. But we rarely think about the roots beneath it; the quiet, unseen architecture that makes all that beauty possible.
As above, so below.
To reach toward the light, we must also be willing to deepen our roots in the dark.
Perhaps that is what our own dark seasons are sometimes doing. Not burying us but rooting us.
Teaching us how far to reach.
What sustains us.
What we can grow around.
And what we must push through.
It's the anchor that holds us when we finally become tall enough to meet the wind.
And then, one day, something blooms.
Not because it escaped the darkness.
But because it was nourished there.
The flower is not separate from everything the seed and roots endured. It is that unseen becoming made visible.
And even the bloom is not the end.
The flower doesn't desperately hold onto its petals simply because they are beautiful. When their purpose has been fulfilled, it lets them fall. And the plant changes again. It bears fruit. It makes more seeds. It rests. It begins again.
Maybe we aren't meant to spend our lives trying to remain perpetually in bloom.
Maybe we are meant to trust the seasons.
To be the seed when it is time to break.
The roots when it is time to deepen.
The stem when it is time to reach.
The flower when it is time to open.
And the falling petals when it is time to let go.
Because when we are still buried in the dark, we cannot possibly know all the small, beautiful things waiting for us above the soil.
The seed cannot imagine the life it hasn't yet lived.
It has no way of knowing that someday it will feel sunlight.
Or that the rain will collect on its petals.
It just anchors its roots to be strong enough to hold it through the storms.
Never knowing that something else might find nourishment because it grew.
Or that one warm sunny afternoon, after all that breaking and rooting and reaching...
that the flower will giggle when a bumblebee drunkenly sleeps on it.
And maybe that is reason enough to trust the darkness.
There are beautiful things waiting for us that the seed could never have imagined.
So go ahead and break. Find your roots. Reach for the sky. Bloom each time with everything you have. And when it is time - it's okay to let go. Because you can always begin again.
