New Artwork: Seeds of Growth
We were all born seeds. We were all born seeds of growth. You wouldn’t be here otherwise, reading this.
I had this project of new artwork in mind since day one of founding The Earth Agency and I am very pleased it has finally come to life and to now be able share with you the messages it carries.
Being a start-up or starting things over from scratch in your life comes with real challenges, whatever your situation is. But any beginning is an opportunity to plant new seeds, create a vision of growth and courageously step forward in that direction. Any beginning also means you start small and you picture yourself growing from there.
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”
When I started The Earth Agency, it brought me back to the time when my dad started his own business. It was a zillion years ago when I was still a child but I remember some episodes of it very vividly and, today, as I have embarked on this new adventure, the journey my dad took takes a whole new meaning and acts as a really useful reference and inspiration. It is our intertwined stories that planted the seed to give birth to this artwork.
At the time, my dad was working at a garden centre seven days a week non-stop, for not much. I remember we would barely see him and, at some point, he made the decision that enough was enough, that this job was leading nowhere and that he had to take his life into his own hands if he wanted things to change.
“Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.”
He decided to make the plunge, resign, change everything and start his own business capitalising on his botanical knowledge and aiming to partner with companies in this area. I remember the nights when my parents were fighting over it, my mum worrying about what they would live with, also considering they had three small children. The future was uncertain, they didn’t know if it would work.
But knowing my dad as I know him, I actually know he knew it would work. I know he knew he would do everything for it to work. He is the type of person who has never been short of hard work, who’s always done things very intelligently, and he is actually one of the very few people I met in my life with such passion and energy. He simply makes things happen and it definitely holds qualities of success.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
He told me a story perhaps only three years ago about an artwork he is keeping at home and that he wants me to inherit. As it happens it is a very detailed illustration of a typical street with picturesque houses as you find them in the Alsace region of France.
He met the man who was working on it in the street when he started travelling for his new business, aiming to make a living from it. The man explained that he had just gone out of jail and was doing these artworks to sell them and make a living for himself too.
When my dad met him he had only 200 francs in his pocket to see him through the week which would cover his expenses, but rather than keeping the money he decided to buy the artwork from this man.
“Nature doesn’t hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
My dad actually cried when he told me that story. I could tell it had been a significant event in his life for him at the time and a real decision to give all his money to this man, a stranger, especially when himself had not much and a family to feed.
It made me ponder about what kind of man does that. I’m impressed by how compassionate he was still able to be at this challenging point in his life, but also, significantly, how confident he was about money being energy flow and that he knew he would make more and that things would be ok. That day, I also realised that the man he met was like a mirror of his own reflection. He was giving money to himself.
Long story short, things have been ok, even more than ok. The long-term goals and aspirations that my dad envisioned at the time did happen. The seeds he planted grew stronger and stronger and I can only say now that there is so much I can thank my dad for as he was able to look after us, after me, while fulfilling himself and this thanks to his decision to change the trajectory of his life.
“If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to.”
Finding myself in that situation today of starting over, it is perhaps only now that I can truly measure what it must have required of him as I have watched it unfold in his own life. Is it an easy journey? No, of course not, a journey like this is a hard-working one, a humble one and character and attitude are everything as the ability to align and re-align yourself with your goals as they manifest and evolve.
But all the hard work is in effect rewarded by so much self-fulfilment and positive connection that it is totally worth it. And at some point, yes, things become a lot easier, even if nothing is a guarantee for the future.
If I try to summarise some of the key takes for starters that I have witnessed all those years and see as essential today, it would probably include:
Courageously stepping forward in the direction of your true life purpose
Staying positive, optimistic and practical to manifest what you want
Building strong foundations from well-laid plans to ensure future stability, progress and success
Putting your efforts and focus towards your long-term goals and aspirations
Working with purpose, passion and drive
Trusting that the things you require will manifest when needed in your life, because – hint – if you do all of the above, they will
And then with the right foundations and the right conditions, seeds grow and we grow through stages. At each new phase in our lives we are somewhere we have never been before. This is when we need to have faith and trust that we have the skills, talents and abilities to face all that lay ahead of us. This is also when we need to be able to drop who we were in the previous phase to become who we will be in the next one.
“When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”
This new artwork – Seeds of Growth – is about that faith we need to go from the ground to the sky, to grow from a small seed to a full bloom.
I once asked my dad (who is in between other things a botanist) what he likes about gardening. He said that there is something very special about planting a seed, tending to it and see it grow, reflecting your efforts. You create a new life.
I am not sure he realised the metaphor with his own life as an entrepreneur, but I did, and I shall look at this artwork with fondness moving forward. I drew the flowers from my dad’s garden in France. It couldn’t be anything else. It is part of his legacy, seeds that for him have come to full blooms now giving life to new seeds and inspiring others to grow as we are looking to new beginnings.
“When the student is ready the teacher will appear. When the student is truly ready... The teacher will Disappear.”
I drew this artwork to help remind us these important life lessons and inspire our new beginnings as much as our everyday.
If you’d like to bring it into your life you can head to the shop section and I am giving a few more details about the drawing itself as well as our 10% pledge for the planet.