Planting seeds for growth and love in your life

With the spring season on its way, I’ve been thinking about how the seeds we have planted start to bear fruit. And this includes something we often don’t think about – the seeds we plant in our lives every day.

Some seeds don’t grow much, while some show tremendous growth. We don’t know which seeds will grow, so we keep planting.

Examples of “planting seeds” in our lives are:

• The smiles and encouragement we give to make someone’s day.

• The daily prayers we say to strengthen our beliefs.

• Learning daily, which grows into big knowledge.

• Forgiveness of others in small prayers, and expanding on that forgiveness to help us let go and love again.

• Creative efforts, which plant nourishment and grace.

I found a beautiful story at Atiqmakers.org, which, according to the website, is the Jewish Maker Institute, “an applied arts yeshiva which nourishes an embodied spirit of belonging and creative confidence in Jewish tradition.”  The title of the article is, “A Seed is a Prayer: Blessings for Things that Grow.” In the article, writer Heather Vidmar-McEwen adapts a story from Talmud Bavli, Taanit 23a.

She writes, “Rabbi Yochanan tells the story of a righteous man, Choni, who was walking along a path and saw a person planting a carob tree. Choni asked them, ‘How many years will it be until this tree bears fruit?’ They replied that it would take seventy years to harvest carob pods from the tree.

“Choni was surprised, because the person planting was old.

“He said to them, ‘Do you expect to live seventy more years so that you will benefit from the fruit produced by this tree?’ And the person said, “As a child I found the world filled with beautiful trees, bearing delicious fruit, all planted for me by my ancestors. Just as my ancestors planted for me, I too am planting for my descendants.”

Let’s keep planting those positive seeds. Happy spring!

PATRICIA RASKIN, owner of Raskin Resources Productions, is an award-winning radio producer, business owner and leader.  She is on the board of directors of Temple Emanu-El, in Providence, and is a recipient of the Providence Business News 2020 Leaders and Achievers award. Her “Positive Aging with Patricia Raskin” podcast is broadcast on the Rhode Island PBS website, ripbs.org/positiveaging.