Harvest Time

After cultivating my garden for the past three months, it is now harvest time. Having started later in June, watering it religiously and speaking to my seedlings and plants for the past three months, I finally ate my first tomato near the end of August.

Those who know me well will understand. In the impatience to witness its growth, I visited and spoke to my garden every day from June until now. Soon after its start, it was to help it grow so that every morning when I ventured out to examine my little box, I would notice that something, anything had changed. At first, it was how many new leaves and branches had sprouted overnight and how much taller they had grown from one day to the next.

Next came the flowers that transformed into fruits and vegetables in the natural order of things through the cycle of life. I fertilized every two weeks, added calcium and Epsom Salt to the soil to provide the right nutrients and watched my tomatoes grow until they started changing colors and turning red. At the end of August, I was harvesting and enjoying the fruits of my labor. In due time and at the cycle’s completion. After putting in the work, I was now reaping its benefits.

I can be persistent, but I am not known to be patient. I can usually exercise patience with people (certain people) but rarely do I with things, events and experiences. I usually want it and want it now. Why waste time when you know what you want. But nature is different. The cycle of life governs in the overall design of the universe and nothing happens before its season. Therefore, everything in its own time while timing is everything.

As it is with a garden, so it is with life.

It takes three months to harvest tomatoes, but it takes decades to reach maturity and experience harvest in real life. With all the surrounding noise and messages that come to us through television, films, the entertainment industry and social media, we lose our way and think mostly of the external achievements that secure us a place in this illusionary world we create. We convince ourselves that our purpose is to achieve all the external signs of worldly success. We look at the lives of others and perceive that they have it all, they are so lucky and wonder why our train is taking so long to get the station. We want our train of goodies and we want it now.

But we do not know what we do not know.

We fail often to see the hard work that leads to the harvest. All our human eyes chose to see are the results. We fail to see the many ways and the many years some “lucky” people have sacrificed to focus and work on their goals and objectives. Others live intensely, produce much and reap the greatest rewards early in life, often at the price of unbearable pain and because they only have so much time to be in this world. Chadwick Boseman’s life and transition is a reminder.

Our lives have a purpose and we come to this dimension to grow and leave this place a better world; once we transcend it all, it is time to move on to another dimension. We come to this earth to walk our personal journey towards enlightenment and awareness. It is not easy, for we do it in the midst of the collective, constantly balancing our needs versus the world’s and surrounded by noise and chaos. Our aim, however, is to maintain inner peace and serenity amongst all the noise and become a spectator to the entertainment that surrounds us.

The seeds of our harvest take time because we often are not yet ready to understand and allow these graces to take root in our lives. We are fearful and that fear colors our judgement. We need to go through the storms to experience and confront our worst instincts until we learn to transform them into a catalyst for our better selves to emerge. Sometimes, we lose faith, hope and people along the way. Sometimes, people abandon us because we are not ready for their presence in our lives or we chase them away through our insecurities and insufficiencies.

In time, hopefully, we learn these lessons and do better with the new people and circumstances that enter our lives. It is simple as that while also complicated. And it all starts with planting the seeds and sustaining their growth. Often, like the tomato plant, we need to weather the storm, let go of the dead leaves and twigs, nourish the new growth and wait for our harvest. It will come in time and with effort.

I know for I have experienced it all and now reaping my harvest. It only took five decades.

And the journey continues. With Joy and with Purpose.