on karma 🐛

& honoring the seed

Karma, in Sanskrit, means action. It’s a concept rooted in ancient yogic thinking that has permeated modern culture with sayings like what goes around comes around - a reinforcement of action as something inseparable from consequence. In its original philosophy, karma espouses the principle of cause and effect (perhaps not as linearly as in western thinking), and uplifts ‘right’ action as one taken without attachment or entitlement to its fruits or outcomes.

This understanding of karma reminds me of a saying in Islam: if the end of days are upon you, and you find yourself with a sapling in your hand, plant it. Meaning, exercise hope in the face of hopelessness. Even if you may not personally benefit from the shade of the tree you planted. 

The end of the calendar year prompts retrospection in all of us, typically an anxious scramble to quantify the past 365 days into tangible markers of success. Things we can show to demonstrate that our actions were of merit.

There’s nothing wrong with celebrating life’s strides forward, just like there’s nothing wrong with basking in the beauty of a blooming sunflower or the emergence of a butterfly from a cocoon. But this form of celebration feels constrained and incomplete. Maybe the true glory of the sunflower isn’t only in its golden petals, but also in the simple fact that a seed was once planted. There is no guarantee that the seed would sprout, that all the conditions would be met for its life force to burst through a hard shell, form a root system, and travel upwards through darkness to meet sunlight and explode into a joyful blossom. The seed being placed in soil is like a caterpillar spinning its own cocoon – embodiments of hope that feel just as triumphant as the sunflowers and butterflies that emerge on the other side. 

If the seed didn’t sprout or if the cocoon didn’t survive - would these acts still be beautiful? Worthwhile? 

I wonder what happens when I apply this question to life. Like every year, this one was a mixed bag of ups and downs. Rather than tallying the sunflowers, I’d like to consider the times I planted seeds. Things like starting this newsletter, baby stepping into a new career path, confessing long-held feelings to someone, practicing deeper honesty & presence in friendships, initiating hard conversations, and valuing myself as a writer. Some of these actions led me to joy & satisfaction, some to doubt & sadness, and some to the bittersweet in-between.

My impulse is to feel regret over the seeds that didn’t sprout the way I had envisioned. But if I consider them through the lens of karma, I can see the beauty of the seeds themselves — times I listened to spirit over ego, hope over cynicism. Regardless of how I label the immediate, perceivable outcomes, these actions make up the ebbs and flows that push me closer to my truest self. 

I suppose one of the lessons here is that the more we practice acting with hope over attachment, the less our disappointment erodes into suffering. The more we learn to honor the planting of the seed as much as the sprouting, the more fulfilling the gardening becomes.

So my end of year success story is that I tried! I tried being braver, more loving, more authentic, a little bit more myself. I felt joy and heartache, vitality and fear. I participated in life’s sweetness and pain, and all of it helped me find a little more comfort existing in my own skin. So I suppose that’s my success, but to be honest, success doesn’t feel like the right word  - it feels more like a miracle.