One of the reasons we love the spring is that it is the absolute embodiment of hope. In this season we trust that every seed we plant will sprout and thrive. We expect our gardens to be glorious and we look forward to surroundings that are abundant with growth and blooms.

Why shouldn’t we be hopeful and optimistic? Whether it’s the beginning of the growing season or any point in the year, it’s possible to feel positive even as we realize that work and uncertainty lie ahead. That same amount of effort and ambiguity would be there if we approached the future with pessimism and despair, so why not choose to walk with hope instead?

We are blessed to experience spring, the season of rebirth and faith. We are challenged, at the same time, to walk forward knowing that we have a hand in cultivating these expectations. Everything in our gardens and lives may be primed to grow, but our continual attention may determine the ultimate outcome.

As I go through the weekend, I’ll be asking each sign of hope and faith to nourish me, and remind me of my responsibility for what I wish to grow.

Planting pea seeds is the ultimate expression of hope and faith. We put them in the ground when the air is still raw and the ground bare. The slightest amount of warmth that the sun provides triggers their growth. The peas are up! The growing season has begun.

I can’t imagine that there is a person on this planet that hasn’t sown seeds that failed to germinate. I’m not just talking about seeds that grow into plants, but of all the things we try to grow, in and out of our gardens.

A reader of this blog recently sent me an open-hearted and touching email that listed many of the things she’d tried to grow in her 40 odd years that hadn’t developed as she’d hoped they would. I thought, “Yup. I can totally relate to that.”

If I had to list every art exhibit I entered that I didn’t get accepted to, every novel I’ve started, and each book proposal/query I’ve mailed, not to mention the host of other projects and ideas that went only so far and then withered, the list would be long enough to fill this blog for many months to come. Really.

Gardeners learn early on that it’s probably a good idea to focus on those things that did grow, not the seeds or plants that failed to thrive. Although I’ve had many plants that have died  or seeds that didn’t sprout, honestly, I’ve probably had greater success in the garden than I have with the things I’ve tried to grow in other areas of my life.

So why keep planting? Why have those ideas, send out those queries, or start a new pursuit? Alfred Lord Tennyson said it best when he wrote, “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” It’s better to have created and failed than to not create/think/dream at all.

There is something so life affirming about trying that it’s preferable to have made that effort than not to have acted. The very act of saying yes to the creative process, of being willing to sow seeds and eager to see if something will germinate, this enthusiasm to grow benefits us in ways that far exceed the results of our actions.

In our willingness to try, in our keenness to sow seeds, we are saying yes to life itself.

Some of these seedlings that I started will flourish, and others will die. I have no idea which ones will thrive, but the act of planting seeds and seeing them grow into these seedlings is satisfying in itself. After that, it's a matter of faith and hope.

Early in the season when all the plants are young and new, we have no idea how, or if, they will develop. Perhaps it's smart to carry spring's optimism into the rest of our lives, being willing to sow seeds and plant young ideas, trusting that something will grow.