What the seed doesn't know

Addie and Ben were really excited that I had typed up the words to The Seed. They wanted to help illustrate the story, and asked for print-outs so they could get to work.

In Ben's version of the storybook, I was really curious to notice the role of seed in the drawings: she just kept getting sadder and sadder as the story went on. As the narrator opined about the upcoming transformation, trying to encourage our seed, the seed just kept saying, "I don't know. I still don't know. Still."

The narrator was oblivious, grandstanding insensitively, tuned-out to the seed's pain.

In a meeting today, I found myself being a little like that narrator. I opined grandly about change and transformation, potential and possibility, while the body language in the room seemed to be growing more and more tired, diminished, reduced...

I'm reminded that change, no matter how powerful, still requires incredible amounts of work, loneliness, pain and effort. A seed being buried in the ground will explode, in tota…