Fruit – Harvest – do you dream of fruit, perfectly ripe? Do you love to cook and entertain? Are you attracted by movies with long family dinner scenes, outdoors beneath an arbor? Is touring wine country a popular fantasy of yours? You are a person who is propelled forward by imagining smiles on the faces of others as the work of community and family harmony is celebrated and enjoyed. This vision can keep us going through bitter hardships.

Challenge – Keeping these visions alive during the planting phase is hard, because the growth cycle is long and can be boring and uneventful. That’s why planting occurs in stages, so all your psychic eggs aren’t resting in the same basket. Learn to enjoy all the seasons, without hungering for a single season. This is a good time to contrast group versus individual gratification and ask ourselves, “What’s that about?”

Danger – We become obsessed with gratification until it takes more and more to gratify us. The next thing you know you are in an addiction and no longer a planting cycle. We need to look forward to the abstemious times, sitting around the fire telling stories, without needing “success” to be an endless party. Luckily sleep and dreams are the best model of fruitful dormancy. We need those periods and we need to look forward to their relief and imaginative nourishment.

Opportunity – every family’s celebration of the success and nourishment cycle is different. Are there leftover behaviors that no longer serve you? What fresh, exciting new ideas might you add? Is everyone in the family/community being well-served or are there grumpy holdouts? It’s also fruitful to listen to what the grumpy holdouts say, occasionally. How might they do things differently? If all they want is to harsh everyone else’s buzz, maybe they should no longer expect an automatic invitation to the feast.

Meditation –

#Haiku: Fruition

Self expands –
No more
“For” or
“Against”;
Blend
Seamlessly with
Mother Mind