#107: Planting & Persistence
The parable of the bamboo seeds, your soul’s fertile creative gardens, your life’s unshakeable potential, and the seeds of your becoming that are waiting patiently to be sown.
What if I told you that you already have everything you need to build the life of your dreams?
What if I told you that right now, exactly as you are: you are enough.
You are possible. You are worthy, and you are unfolding things beyond your current understanding of what is possible for your one and only life.
If you don’t believe me, that’s okay — but I want to ask that before you scroll away (or fill your time with any of the one million other things you could be doing right now), that you take just ten or so minutes of your day to read and/or listen to the following story, the story of Yukari and the Bamboo seeds. It might just open your mind, and change your perspective — and, if you’re like me, it might just change your life.
It is a story that I have invented, but the parable upon which it is based has been around for thousands of years. A tale as old as time itself. And I believe I was sent to you today, to tell you the story in the way that it has reappeared to me in my imagination. So please find a comfortable place to sit, and listen to my tale.
The Tale of Yukari & The Bamboo Seeds
Once upon a time, there was a farmgirl named Yukari, Yu for short. Her name, meaning reason, was given to her by her parents, two humble farmers who believed that all they had done in their lives had led them to their greatest adventure of all: raising Yu.
Yu was an adventurous girl, always eager to explore more and more of the lands upon which she grew and was nurtured. She would often spend entire days running with the neighing horses, playing with the clucking chickens, and laying in the tall grasses of the planting fields as the sturdy cows fed themselves around her.
Yu was happy, but she knew that there was more she wanted out of life. She loved her family’s farm, but she dreamed of seeing the world. She’d read books, late into the night by candlelight, books that told of the cobblestone streets of Rome, the bright lights of Paris, the rickshaws of India, and the delicious wide waters of Mexico. Yu knew that she dreamed of seeing it all, of tasting every last place that the world had to offer.
There was only one problem: Yu had no money.
It was nice to dream, but without practicality, dreams can turn sour, taunting, tormenting ghosts of what could’ve been, anxious premonitions of what might someday we might become.
One day, as Yu was feeding the clucking chickens, she saw the bright reflection of orange pulling up the drive, it was the shabby old convertible that her Auntie Tabi drove. She laughed as the car wheezed its way up the drive, clearly on its last legs. Auntie Tabi would spend, almost religiously, on travel and the benefit of her family's cultural education — but car maintenance, not a chance.
Yu loved when Auntie Tabi came to town.
When she did the house was always full of renewed laughter. Her mother and Tabi would fall into an old rhythm, a secret language, sharing stories from girlhood, and her father, proud and smiling, would cook them fine meals, served upon their nicest plates, as they held each other close and chatted and laughed late into the night.
On Aunt Tabi’s visits, she always brought gifts from her travels.
Little treasures and totems from the places she had been. From Argentina, she had brought hand-painted ceramic vases, from Mexico, figurines commemorating the day of the dead, Día de Muertos.
With each gift, Auntie Tabi told the story of her acquisition, the friends she met as she traveled, the artisans she supported, and the world she had so proudly seen.
Yu found herself enchanted.
She loved the stories of the bright crystalline blue waters where Aunti Tabi swam naked and unafraid, the fertile forests filled to the brim with wild exotic animals, the bustling cities, populated with people speaking languages that Aunt Tabi had only studied in books, the many friends that she made along her journey, shop keepers and cooks, cleaning staff and fellow travelers. There was never a stranger that Aunt Tabi met who did not fall in love with her.
Yu’s mother, Aunt Tabi’s sister, Hina, said that it was almost as if her sister’s name, which meant journey, had determined her life of exhilarating adventure.
While she loved the stories, she was content with her lot and didn’t dream of travel in the way her sister and daughter did so clearly did. She dreamt of exactly what she had. It was a beautiful life, no lesser, no more, a life of planting and persistence, of motherhood, of raising Yu, of reading long novels in the evening by the fire, of nourishing the fields, studying the weather, caring for the animals. Her husband was the same. Sharing with her all of the duties, sometimes seemingly endless, of running a farm. She had always been fascinated by agriculture, and the people in the town loved the care that she put into her harvest.
The group, full of joy, ate and sang and spent a magical evening with one another, for Aunt Tabi was only in town for one day and one night only.
By the fireplace, long after Yukari’s parents had gone to bed, Yu stayed up eagerly watching the flames lick the air, stealing sips of ever-cooling tea, as she eagerly listened to Aunt Tabi’s stories.
Finally, with a bit of courage, as Aunt Tabi came to the end of recounting a brief romance she’d had with one of the fisherwomen she’d met along her way, Yu decided to share her dream.
“I want to be like you when I grow up,” Yukari said.
Aunt Tabi smiled and looked at her, studying her face, as a sweet, knowing smile crested on her lips. As she did, all the wrinkles danced across her mouth, a life spent smiling and laughing and kissing and eating. What could be better? Yu thought.
“How so, my sweet?” Aunt Tabi cooed.
“I want to see the world.” Yukari continued, “I want to be one with the seasons. I want to swim in faraway oceans and hike mountains at the ends of the earth. I want to have lovers and a life that is full of so many … experiences… I want to know it all. To see it all. To taste it all.”
Her Auntie smiled and reached out a hand, which hugged her own tightly in its grasp. She knew what it was like, having felt the same way when she Yukari’s age.
“You will have it all my sweet, but first, you must earn your passage, so that you can help your family and travel with your burden’s eased and your pockets full. So that you may never have to rely on a man for your home, or to keep food in your belly.”
“But how will I earn this money?” Yukari asked.
Aunt Tabi looked, pausing, at her as if deciding something. And with a mischievous grin, she scurried over to her suitcase, still open near the front door, practically spilling over with trinkets and half-folded clothes, and she rummaged a bit, digging deep into her belongs, before retrieving a parcel.
The parcel was unmarked and small, and when Yukari held it in her hand, she felt the cool grasp of Auntie Tabi’s palms covering her own. “Sweetheart, promise me that you won’t open it until I’m gone, alright?”
“But what is it?” Yukari asked, nodding despite herself.
“In this pouch,” Tabi began, “is everything you need,” her Auntie said, before letting out a big yawn, squeezing Yukari tight once more, giving her a final kiss on the forehead, and heading off to bed, swaying as she went.
The next day the family wished Auntie Tabi well as she embarked on her next great adventure. She was going to sail around Asia and the Horn of Africa with companions she’d met on her last journey.
She would live and work on a seafaring vessel, docking at various ports and seeing faraway cities, old and new.
Yukari was excited for her, but knew that she would not see her for years, that by the time Aunt Tabi returned she would be older, different somehow. She felt a pang of sadness thinking of it. The transition she was about to cross.
The trio watched as her ratty old vehicle wheezed down the drive. And as soon as Aunt Tabi disappeared from view, her transport receding into the distance, Yukari tore into the package, sending its contest spluttering and flung wildly through the air, for within its creases poured out a handful of the most plain-looking seeds Yukari had ever seen.
Her mother grinned, “Bamboo seeds! How marvelous!”
Yukari began scattering the fallen, holding them in her palms before her mother retrieved a cloth sack for their storage, and she studied them for a while, looking at them quizzically, clearly disappointed. They looked almost like grains of rice. Useless, she thought, unkindly.
“What should I do with them?” she asked.
“You are meant to plant them, honey,” her father said cheerfully. “That was very generous of your Auntie to bring them,” her mother added.
“I know just the spot,” her father said, guiding them both to the empty swath of land, that was going to be more space for artichoke seeds, but which Yukari’s parents would happily surrender for her sack of Bamboo seedlings.
Yukari didn’t know how to feel. And that night, she snuck out to the planting fields and lay amongst the bare dirt she’d inherited. She stared up meekly at the night sky and held her sack of seeds over her heart. The stars glistened, little poems weaving themselves overhead and Yukari decided to pray to the earth mother for a miracle.
She leaned close to the dirt and whispered to the earth and heavens, “Tomorrow I will plant within you the seeds of my becoming. I will water them every day until they yield my family the life we deserve.”
The ground said nothing in return, but as the wind rushed, Yukari believed that the earth had heard her. That somehow, everything was unfolding as it was destined.
The next day, Yukari’s father and mother guided her again to the empty stretch of land, gave her the tools she needed for digging and plowing, and set her about the task of planting her precious Bamboo seeds.
She knew that if the seeds grew, she would have food, medicines, and money for her family. That she could harvest and sell the Bamboo, and the profits could sustain them all, maybe even afford a plane ticket or two.
So each day she watered the Bamboo diligently, excited to watch her efforts yield results right before his eyes. But sadly, despite her consistency and passion, the seeds did not appear to be growing beneath the soil at all.
Time passed, and still nothing. The first year came and went, and still, Yukari trekked out to her spot in the planting fields each day and watered the ground where she’d invested her seeds.
She would stare at the soil in disappointment, anger bubbling in her, unsure of why nature was not keeping its bargain. After all, she’d done what she was supposed to do, so why hadn’t the earth done its job in return?
She thought often of writing to Aunt Tabi and asking if this was some sort of trick but always talked herself out of it. Aunt Tabi was in love and at sea and even if she did write the letter, how could she get it to her?
Yukari’s parents had raised her to know that with hard work she could achieve anything she set her mind to. They taught her that anything worth doing takes longer than one might imagine. In other words: The fruits of one’s labor don’t arrive overnight. Just look at the artichokes, which sometimes took two whole years to grow.
Or look at the childhood of a human? It could be decades before the human makes an indelible mark upon the world, and tender love and care must be given to the child daily, regardless of the returns that may or may not come in some distant future.
Patience x Time = Miracles, her father would often say, an expression that she repeated now in her head, almost taunting herself.
Still, she went on planting. If anything, she was stubborn, and could not be undone so easily by a tiny sack of seeds.
Yukari knew that she was diligent and determined, but still, she felt a growing unease.
Each day she went down to her fields, watered the spots where she’d planted her seeds, and felt a pang of anxiety when she saw that the ground remained flat, as if nothing had happened at all.
She told her mother of her worries, and her mother plainly proclaimed that all she could do was focus on what she could control.
“You just have to show up each day to nourish the soil, honey, even on the days when you don’t feel like it,” she would begin, “Maybe even especially on those days,” she continued.
“You don’t yet know what is possible for your life, what could potentially come from those seeds. But there is only one way to find out. Don’t stop watering your potential, because if you stop, your possibilities cannot reveal themselves to you and the gods will find another vessel for their blessings.”
And so Yu trekked on, day after day, month after month until it had been an entire two years. And still, the soil was flat, unyielding.
She sat in her planting fields and wept.
She didn’t know how much longer she could do this. How could she keep pouring into something that wasn’t giving anything back? How did she even know if her efforts were appreciated? What if the land was taking her water with no intention of yielding any Bamboo shoots at all?
Days continued to pass, months became years and still, the Bamboo seeds did not grow.
In the fourth year, Yu seriously contemplated giving up. It’s been four yearsshe thought angrily. I’ve given to this land every single day and still, my seeds have not grown. She felt embarrassed and sad, like a failure. Like a child.
Why had she trusted Aunt Tabi? Clearly, this has been some elaborate mean-spirited trick. The seeds would never grow, she despaired.
Her parents held her as she cried in the night.
For hours she would weep, giving all of the reasons for her despair between continued sobs. Finally, on a night of particular sorrow, after she felt like no tears were left in the entirety of her body or soul, she told them that she would stop watering the ground altogether, Bamboo be damned.
Her mother paused, taking this in, considering things.
She paused a long time, during which Yukari and her father watched, unsure of what she might say. When she spoke, she did so slowly, and her words carried a weight Yukari had never before heard.
“Give it one more year,” her mother said.
And when Yukari looked into her eyes she saw something she could not explain, something that indicated that perhaps her mother knew things she could not.
So against the advice of her anxiety and self-doubt, and against the panic that set in when she saw the empty fields, still Yu trekked, watering the ground where the seeds were planted.
And still, the seeds did not grow.
When dawn rose on the fifth year, something miraculous happened. As if from nowhere, Bamboo began to appear up from the ground.
When Yu trekked out to her field, a day like any other, she at first didn’t understand what it was she was seeing. Was this a trick? A prank from the neighbor’s boys who knew her as the long-suffering Bamboo lady?
She quickly retrieved her mother and father, bringing them with haste to the spot where Bamboo shoots began to peak out of the ground. Her father shouted with excitement and her mother cried, bringing Yu into her arms and shaking her madly. The three of the danced and shouted, and Yu could not believe it, but Bamboo had finally grown.
Her father continued to shout with glee, the joy of a boyhood reliving itself. And her mother hugged her tight again and again and said, “I’m so proud of you, baby, I’m so proud.”
When Yu came back the next day, the plant had nearly doubled in size. It seemed now to be growing meters and meters per day. Within a week it was taller than her house. Within a month it was so high she couldn’t even measure it with her father’s tape.
Within half a year it must’ve been nearly one hundred meters high.
Her family continued to celebrate with her, month after month, as the Bamboo continued to grow and was harvested. The bounty was enough to feed her entire village, to trade Bamboo for various crops and seeds and clothes, and medicines.
Yukari had so much, so quickly, that she began giving it away for free. She had more Bamboo than she knew what to do within a lifetime. And still, it kept growing and growing, meters and meters per day.
When year six arrived, Yu was the wealthiest farmer in the countryside. Everywhere from far and wide spectators came to see the magic Bamboo that could not stop itself from growing.
Yukari laughed to herself as she told the story, Aunt Tabi now standing proudly at her side, having come home from her journey, with her new wife, and more excitement than she could express.
It almost made Yu weep to think of the years and years she spent watering that same spot. How there had been no sureness, no crowds, no guarantees. How she had trekked day after day to that field and done only what she could do, watered only the seeds she had planted, hoping they might someday grow.
Pretty soon, Yukari was teaching the others about her Bamboo, giving seeds to the children, to travelers, to the villagers, and teaching them how to grow plants of their own, and the patience that must be practiced if one was to experience the potential rewards.
By year eleven, the entire town had Bamboo trees that stretched into the heavens. There was no more hunger, no more poverty. The entire community had been lifted up by Yukari’s persistence, Aunt Tabi’s seeds, and the loving support of Yukari’s mother and father. How could she ever have anticipated that all of this could happen, just from her daily waterings?
Yukari lived a long and prosperous life, eventually traveling alongside Aunti Tabi and her partner to every corner of the earth. The three swam in the farthest crystalline waters, hiked mountains at the edge of the earth, tasted every dish imaginable, and spent decades laughing and smiling and learning, so much so that just like Aunt Tabi, wrinkles of life and wisdom began to stretch and dance across Yukari’s face too.
When she died, old and wise at the age of one hundred and three, Yukari asked for one thing to be written on her gravestone: Here lay a woman who Planted & Persisted.
The Lessons of Yukari of The Bamboo Tree
I hope you enjoyed this story. I sure did enjoy writing it. I’m eager to hear what you gleaned from it and I’m curious as to your observations. What follows is, I feel, just a few of the lessons we can take from stories of this nature.
Stories can teach us so much about the world, our own lives, and our own creative and daily pursuits. Whether you’re starting a business or writing a book, the same lessons apply. Lessons we’ve all likely heard before in some form or another, but that we need reminding of, lest we forget and begin to doubt our own greatness.
Consistency is key & gratification is best when delayed: We cannot expect results overnight. You know that classic saying, “It takes ten years of hard work to make an overnight success.” It’s true. For anything worth doing, you have to start getting comfortable with the idea of putting in years of consistent daily effort. Whether you’re training to become a world-class painter or dreaming of writing the next Game of Thrones, you can’t get there without consistent and persistent effort, over years, likely decades. If you show up and give your all, day after day, week after week, year after year, the universe, I truly believe, will conspire in your favor, as Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho says, to make your dreams come true.
Unexpected stops are a given, re-starting is a must, and all effort is cumulative: It’s okay to take breaks and come back when you’re ready. But you must come back, otherwise your potential cannot be realized. I’ve been taught by Pulitzer Prize-winning poets and fiction writers who, for one reason or another, took years away from their craft, but luckily when they returned to their daily watering, the accumulation of all the years of watering prior helped them get to their destination that much more quickly. Remember: You’re never starting from scratch but from experience.
Dreaming is fun, but don’t lose sight of the journey: While it’s fun to dream about being a best-selling novelist, or a Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, the reality is that fellow artists who make it to those milestones have been watering their talents daily for years, if not decades. Instead of dreaming about the finish line and feeling a sense of overwhelm and despair, focus on what you realistically can do each and every day. In Yukari’s case, what she could realistically give was a pale of water each day, and look how much came of it! The process is what you can control, not the outcome. If you learn to fall in love with the daily process, and never let your worth be determined by uncertain outcomes, then you will truly be free to thrive as an artist.
Don’t throw in the towel too early: Imagine if Yukari had quit in year three?! This is something I think about often. How so many of us are so much closer to our dreams than we might realize. Don’t throw in the towel before you’ve reached your goal. You often do not know your power, the impact your words and deeds may unknowingly have, and perhaps you cannot even see the wild greatness that is in store for you. Focus on pouring love into your daily artistic practice and the rest will work itself out. Remember: You can’t lose if you never quit.
The intelligence of the earth, the seeds, and the universe is more than we can comprehend, trust that it knows what it’s doing. So often, as fallible mortal beings, we assume deistic supreme knowledge over an ever-changing and unknowable universe. Accept that you have no idea when or where your big break will come, and instead refocus and retool your efforts to lovingly practice the skill(s) you wish to hone. Water the seeds of your dreams every single day, even if only in tiny and consistent ways, and trust in the divine intelligence of the universe, which I believe is unfolding in ways we cannot quite comprehend, and is constantly listening to what we think and observing how we act. Ideas, I believe, are alive, and are seeking hosts who will treat them kindly, who will be loyal and dedicated, and who will show up day after day, giving their all to bring them to life. Nature has divine timing and it’ll often be different from what you crave or expect, surrender to that.
Help others along the path wherever you can. It would’ve been super easy for Aunt Tabi to never give Yukari those seeds, but she recognized that we all flourish when we share with one another. It is the same with Yukari’s parents, who lovingly supported her along her journey, and Yukari, who then paid it forward, and freely gave her bounty to those in need around her. How can you help those you love today? Family, friends, community members, fellow writers on Substack, and fellow artists in your field: What can you do to nurture, love, and support them along their own journeys of planting, persistence, and unfolding? What words of kind encouragement can you offer? How can you better support their work? Remember: A rising tide lifts all boats. We are one another’s mirrors and keepers. Your win is my win. My win is yours. When you thrive I thrive, and vice versa. We get to where we want to be by supporting one another and lifting each other up along the way.
a song to keep you going when things become uncertain:
Lyrics:
“I am everything I want to be
I have everything I need”
A closing question: What can you water within you today, this week, this month, this year?
Everything you need is already within you. The water does not give the seed magical properties it never had before, it only reminds the seed of its power, and encourages it to unleash all that it has always and already had within.
This is the same for you. Maybe reading is your water, or maybe love is your water. Maybe it’s the support, friendship, and kindness of your trusted companions, whatever it is, these things are only just reminding you of all that you are already capable of and have always been capable of.
Whatever your Bamboo might be, it is waiting for you, it wants to grow and it wants you to harvest it in a divine offering to the collective. Whether it’s writing a novel, writing a screenplay, starting a business, gathering the courage to propose, having a child, raising a family, planting a garden, learning a new skill, returning to an old hobby, a once wild passion, or career that you temporarily left behind or lost from circumstances outside of your control, or from decisions you wish you could take back, whatever it is, it matters, it’s here, and it is waiting for you.
The seeds of your becoming exist forever within you, lovingly waiting to be planted, excitedly yearning to expand, forever knowing that they have all that it takes to grow your wildest dreams.
The question becomes: Will you let them?
“It is never too late to be what you once might have been.”
— George Eliot
Thanks for sharing this lovely story! I love that her whole village thrived.
Brilliant piece of writing Alex. I shared my thoughts on this parable into a post when I restacked. 🙏