No, this is NOT some strange recipe. It’s how I learned a life lesson I didn’t want to learn. I’m not a deep thinker, so when this thought hit me and wouldn't leave me I had to investigate what it meant. My thinking was about to go deeper than I ever imagined.
It’s spring and in school we are learning about how plants and chicks develop. Lima beans in a bag with a wet paper towel, chicken eggs in the incubator. Each day we talk about the changes we can and can't see happening to our projects.
Let’s start with the lima beans. In our bags we CAN see changes happening. Our beans become fatter, the hard outer coating becomes slimy and seems to disappear. Most of us see a root breaking through. Some seeds are too wet and are molding. I, as the person who hates to see a sad child, intervene secretly to be sure all kids have at least one seed with a root. We do talk about the ones that did not open up to a root. How too much water has, in essence, drowned them and there was not enough air to help them grow. After a few days, we fill a clear cup with soil, bury our little rooting seed, add some water, and wait anxiously for a sprout.
And sprout they do. They grow taller and taller and we see the root web through the dirt and along the side of our clear cup. Its an awesome sight! And as we watch the class make books about their seeds. The parts of a plant; seed, root, stem, leaves, flowers, etc. What does a plant need? Food/nutrients, water, sun, soil and air. They document the changes they see along the way.
Now, to the eggs. We cannot see what is happening inside the egg, but we have the pictures on each day of the calendar showing us how it SHOULD be developing. We do have to care for the eggs as we don’t have the mommas to sit on them. We keep the incubator set at the right temp, the humidity just so, and move/turn the eggs so they “bake” evenly.
As we anticipate all that will soon happen, I am suddenly hit with the thought of how my life parralells the life of these lima beans and eggs. Wait! Where did that come from? Is that you, brain? These strangely odd and yet perfectly clear ideas do not just come to me; usually I am flying in the fog of “what’s happening up there.” Yet this thought was not a passing thing, it lingered. So for this thing to happen to me, I had to stop and contemplate it. My brain was showing me this very vivid comparison of lima beans and eggs to my HUMAN LIFE. Again, how strange this was for me; I was afraid I might be crazy. But no, it was a message.
Have you ever considered the “life” of the lima bean? Me either, and yet here it was playing as clear as a theatre movie. Alone, the lima bean cannot grow. It needs water, air, food, etc. without this “help” it would stay a hard chunk of nothing for all of eternity. But through it another process of “life” the necessary items are delivered, and our seed begins to transform. First it’s covering and shape. It becomes slimy and fat, kind of like me. Oops down the wrong track there. But what is happening inside? No one really knows, or at least I haven’t googled it to find out. However, it’s obvious something is happening because of the change we see on the outside. Imagine being the seed, doing whatever you can to break that root free of its confinement. I wonder about the seed that becomes moldy and rots. What DIDN'T happen in there? It became stagnant for sure, but why? Another topic.
Let’s observe the one that is successful, the root breaks through. How hard that must of been, and yet we don’t think twice about it; it just happens. There it is, the beginning of the root. First, it’s one white, wormy, looking thing, then it’s grows some branches and looks like a weird brush. Once it reaches the soil, it grows more “bristles” and anchors itself down. Then the stem begins to grown; an easier process because the root already opened up the way. But now, the stem must be sure it is going in the right direction to reach the sun. Come on, have you really ever thought about that? What if the root didn’t process the right and wrong of growing in the right direction? It wouldn’t thrive. But for the seeds that go the right direction and pop through the dirt it must glorious. Oh but wait, for some that darn shell is still hanging on, and without intervention the leaves will wrinkle and die. The hope of living free above the soil was just a dream.
Now onto the eggs. Delivered from the farm 2 days earlier than expected, we are told that they can sit on the counter for up to a week. We prepare the incubator and have the eggs numbered and placed in two days. Numbered? You ask. Yup we number them, actually place letters on them so we can guess which will hatch first. We also have duck eggs and we put a D and a number to differentiate them in our guesses.
We mark a special calendar with 1-21 and count each day down by putting a photo of what should be happening inside the eggs. We take each number down and see how the chicks are changing, and we wait.
Day 20 Approaches. We the teachers are excited and our anticipation is obvious to all who see us. Day 21, 22, 23, 24, nothing. We have seen some eggs “move” actually shake I guess, but those are the duck eggs. After a visit from our farm friend, we are assured our chicks did not “make it”. Our incubator is no good, but our ducks have 5 more days to hatch so there is still hope. In the other class, several chicks have hatched. I can continue my story because of them.
Before the hatch, the chicks move themselves into position to begin pecking their way out. I didn’t know that they had to be in a certain position or they would perish. They peck toward the air sack and we can hear them chirping from INSIDE the egg. This was pretty cool. So they peck their way out. The strong ones come out and can stay up to 24 hours in the incubator to dry and be warm. Some of them have cracked open the shell, but the hard work of breaking free to live was too much and they have exhausted themselves to death; yes death. Who had thought about this? Not me, after all, like the seeds, this just happens. The teachers are good at shielding this part from the kids. They know not all will survive, but they don’t need to see and know it all.
After all this, I can finally tell you about this crazy, but perfectly clear, message I received. These two classroom experiments relate to the everyday life of the human.
Both lima beans and eggs have embryos. Again, who knew? I never thought about seeds having an embryo, and yet doesn't everything start that way? More so than we thought, but I won’t go into all that. However, we cannot deny that all life begins “somewhere.” And each thing has to grow from something, and apparently the embryo is that something.
Let’s parallel the babies of mammals to the lima bean and the egg. Each of them begin as an embryo, as I have noted above. Each of these need a food source. Mammals get theirs from their mothers, the egg from the yolk, and the seed from the soil. If each is not taken care of properly, they will not grow, or grow with defects, or fail to thrive at any point of development. For those that get what they need, and grow to
the point of “delivery”, they are “born”.
None of the births are easy. Each life form must fight it’s way out. The seed has to push through the earth, which is heavy and sometimes dry. That little seed strives to get to the sun, to breath our carbon dioxide, and feel the rain upon its leaves.
The chick pecks and pecks, rests, and then pecks some more. It is out of food, it has broken through it’s last air supply, and needs out of the egg in a certain amount of time. It, by instinct, knows it’s gotta get out.
The mammal baby really doesn’t have a say in when it’s time to come out. It begins its embryonic state, and at any point can stop growing. This can occur for countless reasons that we don’t need to go into. But let’s say it’s growing well and on schedule, but boom, the “carriers” body (aka mother) decides it doesn’t want to carry it any more. Birth begins whether or not it is time. We know how this can go. That little mammal, is under developed and weak. In the wild this is NOT a good thing, it will be abandoned or even killed by its carrier or pack or tribe, etc. Or, wild or domesticated, it can die because of it’s condition. For those who survive there is often a life of struggle, again for many reasons we won’t go into. However, I would like to mention that medicine has advanced so far that human babies are living through younger and younger births.
For the lucky ones, they stay inside the mother the full amount of time, they develop correctly, and then the birthing process begins. This process is not easy; not for the mother or the baby. Can you imagine being pushed through an area much small than you are. OW! Mothers don’t think about it with their babies, they are just thinking about how to get that thing out because they are in pain. Anyway, it’s instinctive, even in humans. The muscles contract and push and you can’t stop it, so you push too. This can be a difficult time for mother and baby and each can have injuries or death during this process.
Finally, the baby is born, and mother begins the process of raising it. For the “wild” things, the process is instinctive. They just know what to do. For the human mammals, the instinct is shaded by the decision making process. We know pretty much WHAT to do but we also wonder if we are doing it right. We question the foods we offer, the people who care for our children, how should we dress them, put them to bed, and how to keep them happy.
In some “3rd” world cultures, these decisions are cultural. It takes a village, and that is that. They have a pattern of existence.
In more developed countries, ESPECIALLY America, we have so many options. Specialist say to do this, don’t do that, feed this, not that, educate and discipline this way, and don’t do THAT! Isn’t it exhausting? To further that exhausting bombardment of advice, we as the “domesticated “ beings, strive for happiness in our careers, our material things, our financial stability, our reputation. We continue to fight as if we are still trying to break free of our “containment”. As if we will never be free. Life seems to be the never ending push to survive. Always rebirthing, just to do it again. There is never the peace that we have “arrived”, the fight is over, we can rest. The relief ad instinctive life of the sprout and the baby chick don’t seem to come us humans. Our social acceptance shell is never fully opened. We chip and push to be free, and we still feel trapped. The leaves of our life are forever sophisticated by the shell that remains stuck to them.
Yes, all of THIS came from two class science projects involving lima beans and eggs. My clear epiphany was “it is time for change in my life.” It is time to break free of my containment and LIVE! Stop feeling trapped by my environment and what others think I should be. It is an exciting thought and a light is lit inside me. It is also so HARD! A lifetime of emotional prison does not evaporate the moment you are paroled. We need to adapt to our newly found freedom. We need to chat with our hearts and give them permission to feel all the things it must feel to learn how to be free. it’s a lot of work; but can it be any harder than it was to continually chip and push to be free?
To end this long story of struggle, I leave you with this quote of hope:
“And the day came when the risk to remain closed in a bud became more painful that the risk it took to blossom.” (Elizabeth Appell)
Free of our constraints, we will fly and blossom. Just like the egg and the lima bean.
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