Tend the Garden

July 13, 2025

There’s something deeply humbling about watching a garden grow. You begin with something small, a seed, almost invisible in your palm. You push it into the soil, water it, and wait. And wait. You trust the process long before you see any green.

Art is no different.

Every idea, sketch, song, sculpture, photograph, poem, it begins as a seed. Tiny, uncertain, sometimes fragile. We hold them close at first, nurturing them in notebooks, tucked-away folders, late-night sessions when the world is asleep and the self feels loudest. But for the seed to truly become a plant, for our art to become something living, we have to share it. We have to put it into the world.

The artworks we create make up the garden of our presence. A garden is not just what you plant, but how often you return to it. How you tend to it. How you let it breathe and expand. The more you cultivate, sharing, showing up, refining your voice, the more your garden grows. One painting becomes a gallery. One song becomes a soundtrack to someone’s season of life. One story becomes a lifeline for a stranger you'll never meet.

But here’s the catch: You can’t just create and keep your work hidden, hoping it will somehow matter. Art needs sunlight. It needs the minds and hearts of others to grow, to be pollinated with new meaning. What you make might take root in someone else’s life in ways you’ll never witness. A poem you wrote at your lowest might lift someone at their lowest. A photo you almost didn’t post might become the moment that reminds someone they’re not alone.

If you never share it, it can’t bear fruit.

And yes, vulnerability is part of it. Gardens aren’t always neat. Sometimes things don’t grow the way we hoped. Some ideas fail. Some pieces are misunderstood. But even in that, there’s learning. There’s compost. The next creation builds on the remains of the last. That’s how soil gets rich.

So water the garden.

Feed your creativity. Plant often, share often, and remember, the garden isn’t just for you. It’s for the world. Let it grow wild. Let it grow true. The fruit it bears may be unseen by you, but it might be exactly what someone else needed.

Because in the end, the most beautiful gardens are the ones that are lived in, walked through, touched, remembered.

And that starts with you, sowing your seeds, and letting them be seen.