Seeds Hold the Memory of the Future

Despite the many disagreements, conflicts and outright wars we are besieged with, I believe there is one thing we can all agree on: seeds are true to themselves. If you plant an apple seed you get an apple tree. No matter who plants it, no matter location, quality of soil or climatic conditions … an apple seed will always produce an apple tree; not a pear tree or a bicycle – an apple tree and only an apple tree.

And the same is true for all seeds. Seeds hold in trust the memory of the future. Every seed secrets away, in its most essential form, the complete recipe for its own self to come back into its future being. All living things emerge from and return to seed – the single most ubiquitous process in all of creation. The end is in the beginning and the beginning is in the end.

The mystery of seeds is not limited to plants and animals though. Ideas and education are seeds planted in our hearts and minds and exactly like the seeds of Nature, they give rise to themselves. Teaching hatred and violence births more hatred and violence. Teaching Love & Peace issues forth more Love & Peace.

Paradigms Are Seeds

But by far the most impactful seeds are paradigms. Paradigms are the essence of a view, a template, a framework that a given group or culture holds true. When first conceived, sometimes consciously, sometimes generated spontaneously, it simply reflects an explanation for experiences and observations – a composite of ideas, beliefs, theories, images, viewpoints, practices, etc. These combine over time to form an internally coherent blueprint for everything the group does or creates.

An oversimplified but nonetheless true example, if you see humanity as in an integral part of Nature with alignment promising the greatest chance for our well being, then you would grow your gardens (at the very least) organically and seasonally. If you believe that we are at war with Nature and that we have a better chance of winning armed with the weapons of technology and chemistry, then you would opt for industrial agriculture. Even though they are diametrically opposed views, they would both be deemed true, sane and accurate when seen through the lens of their respective paradigms.

Beyond this superficial, visible level, however, paradigms have layers and layers of hidden dimensions with profound effects including a dynamic impact on our very DNA. A lot more on this later in the series.

Paradigms Resist Change

As time goes on, they become more and more ingrained in hearts and minds. After hundreds or even thousands of years of acceptance, they take on a life of their own. They become so ingrained, they become invisible and we cease to remember they are even there, unaware of the enormous influence they are having. Because of this, even when new information and real-world experiences contradict basic premises, they stubbornly resist change. We are loath to change in general, or as the old joke goes, “I don’t mind change as long as I am not there when it happens.” But changing one’s view of reality is the supreme challenge most of us are terrified of. This is understandable when we consider that ideas running counter to a culture’s paradigm are greeted with accusations of blasphemy, treason, insanity, madness, stupidity – humiliation at best; shunning, imprisonment and death at worst. And even if there is no resistance externally/socially, still, the idea that our basic view of reality is inaccurate is felt as a serious threat to one’s sanity not to mention one’s employment and financial situation.

When Western culture was young, the prevailing worldview taught that the sun revolved around the earth. Why? Religious convictions at the time were rooted in the belief that humans were the most important beings in the universe, the Supreme Creation of the One and Only God – and the earth was home and so, therefore, the Center of the Universe. This conviction was so ingrained, so “sacred” and all pervasive, that scientists who sought at first to suggest and later prove, that the sun was the center around which the earth revolved, were ignored, (Anaxagoras (497–428 BC); or so feared for their life they waited until their deathbed before publishing their findings, (Copernicus 1473-1543); or after publishing proof was convicted on “grave suspicion of heresy,” forced to recant beliefs, and spend the rest of his life under house arrest, (Galileo Galilei 1564-1642). It was not until the invention of the reflecting telescope in 1688 (Sir Isaac Newton 1643-1727) and the publishing of his, Principia Mathematica in which he definitively proves the heliocentric model, that the paradigm finally shifted. Over 2,000 years for a failed paradigm to shift!

But did it shift? In a mind-boggling survey conducted by the National Science Foundation in 2012, in which 2,200 people in the United States responded to the question “Does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth,” 26% of those surveyed answered incorrectly. A quarter of Americans surveyed could not correctly answer that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around!!!! (Discover Magazine)

Amazingly, these beliefs are still in play. Many continue to believe we are the center of the universe. Today, scientists can change the structure of a seed by manipulating their genes: GMOs or Genetically Modified Organisms. Of course, they cannot transform the true nature of seeds or their place and importance in our cosmos – if you plant GMO corn seeds, you will get GMO corn. But their endless attempts to redo/control Nature betrays an important feature of our current, still the same, paradigm. As one scientist put it, “We no longer have to settle with what nature gives us. God has competition now!”(quoted in: Do You Believe in Magic, Paul A. Offit, M.D.). In other words, the world should revolve around scientists, the new arbiters of creation. Some might think this is an evolution of our past ideas, but in reality, it is the same. Humans (that is men) are still seen as the most important beings in the cosmos – so important that now we can simply bypass any sense of anything greater than ourselves and place men/scientists, the new “Gods,” directly at the head and center of the universe.

Fish are the last to know about water

Paradigm shifting is no small task and requires, at the very least, openness, courage, knowledge and skill to even consider. So why bother? Today we find ourselves, still, trapped in a failing paradigm that resists all attempts at change. Based on serious mistakes, intentionally carved in stone and unable to respond to new information and understandings, it imprisons us in an increasingly distorted map of reality endlessly causing more and greater harm. And for the overwhelming majority of people, it remains virtually invisible. We might be aware of many of the ideas or images or constructs of the paradigm, but not the whole and all-embracing pattern. Or as the Sufis so wisely points out: Fish are the last to know about water.

The problems we are faced with today are overwhelming even for the strongest amongst us. It is almost impossible to see any, even potential remedies. But with the onslaught of climate change, the degeneration of democracy worldwide, endless violence, the horrifying devolution of humanity, and after thousands of years and billions of applications, it is now beyond obvious that our current paradigm is simply not viable. But despite the fact that it cannot account for or explain or remedy the crisis we are in the middle of, it continually sprouts in our minds giving rise to the same fruit poisoned with the same mistakes and blind spots. It is not only impotent to address current challenges, it is causing them.

Paradigms Shift

The one thing that has the leverage to change all of this is an authentic, full-throated paradigm shift – a move to a new seed capable of bearing entirely new fruit. A radical shift liberating us from the prison of our failed paradigm can give us access to a broader, deeper and more accurate view of reality – a radically new perspective that makes possible new discoveries and creations, new relations and new solutions which currently cannot be seen or accessed. It can provide portals where now we have only walls.