I know a lot of you grow food. It is an amazing thing to do, isn’t it, especially if you do it from seed! A seed is one of the most incredible things on the planet that we can visibly see; notice that “see” and “seed” are so close in spelling. Consider an okra seed, about the size of a small pea. Visibly it looks like a tiny pebble, seemingly inanimate. However, if you plant this “pebble” about 1 inch below the Earth’s surface and water it regularly, an amazing plant will emerge. About 7 years ago, that is exactly what I did and the result was unimaginable. Three months into the watering, I stood next to a plant twice my height with a “waist” of at least 7″. I had to grab it and bend it over so that I could reach its upper fruits. Somehow, in merely 90 days, a speckle of a dark-green “pebble” had grown to be a gigantic organism replete with beautiful yellow flowers and delicious lantern shaped pods rich in Vitamin C!
This plant, just one of ~400,000 plant species on the Earth, taught me so much. It clarified for me how spectacular and intelligent life forms are. It reminded me that all life serves other life; the okra through its flowers (for pollinators), and its oxygen and fruits (for 200-lb primates and other animals). It challenged me to grow “13-feet” in three months using only light, water and soil. Two-thousand days later, I still think about this okra plant and all that it taught me. It is no wonder though, as I still have some of it inside of me.