A friend of mine is a philosopher farmer. By that I mean he finds wisdom about life’s meaning and lessons in the life of plants. His specialty is watermelons and every year he experiments with different ways to start the seedlings. This year he’s trying toilet paper tubes. It’s all over the Internet. Take the inner cardboard tube and cut it in half widthwise to make two shorter tubes. Into each half you put a little soil and a seed. Then water them, cover loosely with some sort of plastic wrap or cover to make a mini hothouse, and let the plants germinate indoors. When it’s time to plant them outside in the garden, you just plant the seedlings still in their cardboard tubes. The tubes disintegrate over time. Easy peasy.
This year he planted a bunch of seeds in toilet paper tubes and then waited to see what would happen. Two weeks went by. Nothing. On the day he was ready to throw them all away he saw the crown of one little plant pushing through the soil. And as the days went by, more and more came up. But here’s the question he’s been pondering: all of these plants have the same light, soil, temperature, and water. The cardboard tubes came from the same brand of toilet paper and the seeds came from the same batch of seeds. And yet, some of the seedlings are robust and healthy while others are clearly struggling. What makes the difference?
I’ve given this a lot of thought. The Course teaches: “The truth is that there are no ‘idle thoughts.’ All thinking produces form at some level.” CE, C2, S10, P7, L1&2. I think the thoughts he was thinking as he planted the seeds made a difference. That’s my idea – what do you think?