A Tiny Seed

　
It was a beautiful morning when I walked out the door with our dog at 5:45AM for our early morning walk. One of those mornings with a star-studded sky and I could make out ‘the little dipper’ and also ‘the big dipper’ but some of them were puzzling me, like a very bright star low to the west.

I try to focus, it is shaped different, with a tail ... like a seed, of a sperm, YES, A SPERM!

The dog is doing twirlies, ready to drop something smelly! He always has to do LOTS of twirlies before he gets down to business. Not a sound to be heard, except the crunching of leaves.

I keep trying to focus on that star, making my eyes water in the brisk morning air.
This short gravel road goes into the park, nobody lives here, so he can drop turds all he likes, but it is pitch-dark, only one street-light way behind us, throwing weird shadows.

When a large shape moves beside me, my heart makes a flip, and a huge buck seems to extract himself from the shadows and runs away, white flopping tail dancing as he runs.
I don’t scream, because I am trying to catch my breath, but the dog makes enough noise for both of us. I guess my dog didn’t smell we were standing right next to that deer? A lot of people walk through there with dogs to go to the park. Maybe too many smells?

Next time I walk here ... it will NOT be dark!

When I come home I have a cup of coffee to calm down ... the first kids arrive at 7 AM
Due to the vision of that special star my book-choice for the kids is ‘A Tiny Seed’, by Eric Carle. I consider Mr Carle one of the best authors of children books.
Yet today I also found a special message in there for myself.


A tiny seed, smaller than the rest is blown away by strong autumn winds.
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It doesn’t burn up, because it gets too close to the sun, it can’t fly that high
It doesn’t freeze by dropping in the snow on the mountain top, because it is not that heavy
It doesn’t fall in the desert to dry out, because it is light and keeps on flying
Also ....
It doesn’t fall in the ocean and drown
It is not eaten by the mouse (it is so small, the mouse didn’t see it)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the tiny seed finally opens, it is kind of late in the season. Nobody plucks it, nobody steps on it. It grows and it grows, until finally it is taller than any flower anybody has ever seen and people are coming from everywhere to look at that
gorgeous flower.

The tallest, most beautiful flower, that was once the tiniest seed!