The Seed: Marking the Beginning of Something
The Seed both metaphorically and physically marks the beginning of something. It slowly grows, transforming, and taking root in your life. At first, it's small and unassuming, things are slowly starting to happen behind the scenes, in the shadows. Pretty soon, you start to see the seed you planted start to take form. You see the roots start to grow and then slowly the idea becomes bigger as it grows and before you know it, it’s fully formed and something that is obtainable.
The Seed by Kim Krans
“Beginnings come in many forms. They are not always a beautiful seed planted intentionally on nourishing soil. Origin stories are complex, surprising, multilayered, and usually reveal a central image…” (197) Kim Krans, The Wild Unknown: Archetypes
When I was thinking about The Seed as an archetype, thinking of all these words that I associate with it. Intention, beginning, life giving, patience, ripple effect, growth, ideas, origin, emerging. It pairs with the Scared Fool archetype. The moment when you take the leap into the unknown, the journey has started and the seed has been planted, ready to take root and grow. A vision is starting to form of where you want your personal journey to go.
Have you ever thought about a seed as sound?
In yoga, we called this Mantra. A Mantra is a phrase or sound repeated to help with concentration in meditation. There are different types of Mantras that you can use, there is Bija mantra (Seed Sounds), Devotional Mantras, or Personal affirmations. In the substack article, How Does a Seed Sound?, the author Bianca Chu writes beautifully on the bīja mantra or Seed sounds.
The Chakra system, when envisioned, is the colors of the rainbow moving up the body. Red at the base and purple at the top of the head. There is a bija mantra or seed sound associated with each Chakra that activates the different energetic centers within the body too.
LAM - Root
VAM - Sacrel
RAM - Solar Plexis
YAM - Heart
HAM - Throat
OM - Third Eye
Silence - Crown
These seed sounds can be chanted, whispered or said silently to yourself.
We’ve probably all heard this phrase at the beginning of a yoga class when the teacher is centering us. “Set an intention or affirmation to come back to throughout your practice”. The intention might be one word or a phrase that you’ve been working with already that you invited into your yoga practice. Something to focus on when the class is more challenging, think of it as your “why” to come back to. Throughout class, the teacher might invite you to come back to the intention or affirmation you set at the beginning.
Other associations for planting seeds would be planting a literal garden, the Ace of Pentacles tarot card, manifesting, intuition.
Questions to ponder:
What intention or seed are you ready to plant and watch grow?
It’s okay to think big here, what do you envision this idea or dream looking like?
What is emerging or transforming in your life?
The Seed comes with beginnings and its own origin story (this looks different for everyone). Sometimes the ideas take root and other times nothing grows, which tells me, it wasn’t the correct time but something eventually will grow.
