The Patient Art of Growing Through Darkness

Winter - Week 4 2025 - On Hard Seeds, Broken Branches, and the Long Wait for July Blooms

In Her Nature is a year long exploration into the healing power of the natural world. Season by season, setting out to awaken the spirit, and rekindle joy. The weekly journal of a neighborhood, its plants and birds and creatures — and how they are helping repair a heart and rebirth a soul.

The world has been spinning faster this last week. Not quite out of control, but definitely unstable, veering close from one exposed ledge to the next. Fear and uncertainty now hang in my circles. And like the frigid temperatures that ushered in the week, it starts to feel like hell is well in the process of freezing over.

I see it, and my heart is sore, yet I don't feel the panic and desperation I did eight years ago. Perhaps my numbness will be an unintended gift this time around. Perhaps I’ve already been hardened to the shock and horror? (That’s part of the playbook, isn't it?) Perhaps I’ve gotten better at taking the long view.

And still, January 20 was hard. The eight-year anniversary of losing our beloved first dog, the passing of warrior and feminist Cecile Richards, and coming home to find Bridget gone. Her tired, expired shell lying on the kitchen table waiting for our return. That night I climbed into bed heartbroken and sad, but also avowing to return to myself and ‘make trouble’ as Cecile would have wanted.

In the days after the 2016 election, I stood in a daze at a local farmer’s market stand buying tomatoes. The surprise of the results was all around, and as I queued, I could hear the lament and distress. I silently nodded, agreeing that we were in uncharted territory, disbelieving this was possible. Then a man suddenly turned to me and said, “... Have you ever grown roses?” I was taken aback by his question. And no, at the time, I hadn't grown roses. He went on to explain that in order to obtain the most beautiful, sweet-smelling, brilliant rose blooms, the bush had to be brutally cut back—almost more than was possible for them to survive. The old gardener was wise. He believed that was what was happening to us all at that moment. And we are still living through that moment. This is still yet the ‘great cutting back’... so we all can blossom better.

It takes a long time.

The one thing I know now is the patience of planting a garden. Sometimes seeds need more than a season to sprout; it takes decades for oak trees to root strong, the blue spruce bears the weight of the spring snow, and branches break. The rhythm of life and death, and enduring are a constant force. Nature carries on, surviving unaware of the madness of humanity. It would serve us well to pay more attention.

“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell” Carl Jung once declared. Another version of our ‘now’ times. A reminder that we are forged in the fire, in hardship, and in suffering. Nature has a way of remembering.

My resistance so far though has taken the quiet form of planting seeds. The first sowing of the year, sweet peas that won’t bloom until July. I soaked their perfectly round cannonball seeds overnight to make germination easier. A reminder that even the hardest of shells must be softened for growth to begin. Then I placed them one by one in a special tray for peas that will let them root down healthy and strong. Another postcard from Mother Nature to make sure we choose the right nourishing place to grow with enough space to rise.

It’s an act of love for myself as much as for the bees and the world. The watching, waiting, and nurturing will help keep my heart open and carry my faith that spring will come. The miracle of watching life take hold is a wonder we should all practice.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The Peace of Wild Things, Wendell Berry

The bright and brilliant sun returned today. It’s shining on my peaceful sweet pea tray sleeping in the windowsill, wrapping them in a blanket of light and willing them to rise. Its warmth brings a welcome gentleness, melting the snow and calling birds from their hiding places. A deep inhale. A reminder that no winter lasts forever.

There will be times to fight, times to rise, times to forbear. All this will come to pass.

Until then remember, we are children of the land, and before all else, we belong to the earth. Joy is also resistance, and we can find that in the creatures and plants where we stand. Let them beckon us back to wonder, and even in the midst of the chaos and craziness, never stop seeing the beauty in the world.