The Greed Seed

When I was 12 years old I won a state wide playwriting competition, my play was selected and performed by a production company created near the Capital. This was a giant deal because I didn’t win things like that, I got good grades, but I was a painfully shy and insecure wallflower. Everyone was really proud of me, and I was humbled and in shock, but also really proud of me too deep down. Maybe I DO have some value, I thought.

My play was called The Greed Seed. How ironic if you know me now, right??

The play was based on everything I learned and was taught about money up to that point, basically it was a fantastical mishmash of all the scarcity beliefs that I work so diligently to undo now.

I wish I could remember the exact details of the play, but in a nutshell this girl discovers a magical seed, a seed that will fruit great abundance and grow into a mighty beautiful tree full of infinite plenty that gives everything you’ve wished for… but instead of this being a wonderful thing, it tears her family apart as they all get greedy and want to keep the seed for themselves or take it away.

This is a clear reflection of my firm belief at the time that money and abundance was bad and that it wasn’t for people like me, and if it came into my life in any kind of greater way, it would cause nothing but pain, because it was bad/evil or would make good people bad/evil. What pains me the most is I don’t remember the exact ending of my play. I know it was a “happy ending”, but I think that the happy ending was in essence that the seed was rejected so that the family could learn their lesson and re-unite, recognizing what was truly important instead.

People eat that shit up. I ate that shit up! And what pains me even more is that this was my first foray into achievement, meaning I was wildly celebrated for thinking and believing this! Imagine the impact that had on me. It agreed with the norm. It agreed with all the stories and all the movies about this. That wanting is bad. That needing is bad. That desire is bad. That money is bad, that magical powerful things are bad, and that PEOPLE are inherently bad deep down and need to shut down their wanting and their desire for more, or it will turn them into MONSTERS.

What I see now when I look at this, is my 12 year old self wrestling with the ways she was seeing her own family being torn apart at the time, over her mothers desire for more. What I see now is my deep pain and conflict, knowing that I too wanted more, I wanted so much, but seeing how that would cost me, seeing it would cost me everything… because it WAS costing me, and my family, everything… in that moment. And my 12 year mind could reconcile all that by getting rid of my “greed seed” within — the seed of my wanting and desire, the seed of my magical powers — so it would not destroy me and the people and things I loved.

I learned then and there that that was the right way, because I was rewarded for that thinking, in a big way. And so, I stayed committed to it. Wanting more, but not TOO much. Desiring more, but not TOO much. Keeping myself below the line. Until the past few years… when I began to undo this lie, and to challenge every voice that said: DON’T. STOP. YOU’LL LOSE EVERYTHING. PEOPLE WILL HATE YOU. THEY’LL DESPISE YOU. THEY WILL TALK ABOUT YOU BEHIND YOUR BACK. YOU’LL LOSE WHAT YOU LOVE THE MOST. GO BACK, GO BACK, GO BACK!!!

But I’m still here, despite that voice’s perpetual insistence otherwise. I still have what I love the most, I have GAINED so much more than I ever imagined possible, and if some people I don’t know hate me or talk about me, that’s okay. The people that matter are here loving me just the same.

At the end of the new story, they do not get rid of the seed. The seed is a magical source of infinite abundance, and the only reason there is any pain in the first place is that the people in the story still believe in scarcity – they do not believe in infinite things, only in limitation, and so they cannot CONCEIVE that this seed could have more than enough for EVERYONE, but it DOES. There is literally no need to hoard it, hold onto it, or fight.

So they do not push away or destroy this source of great abundance in this story’s ending. The fighting and the fear and scarcity still happens… but those wounds then pour out of them like shadows of their secret pain.

At first they run from the shadows, they scream at the shadows, they try to put the shadows off onto eachother. But as the shadows fly around them, unleashed from their former hiding places, the seed begins to crack open, and nobody notices this at first because they’re too busy defending themselves. But all the while the seed is opening amidst the chaos, and a small light begins to emerge from the cracks in its husk.

The girl notices this, and she moves towards it, while the shadows and the people all swirl like a great tornado and hiss “NO!! stay away, look what this has done! Are you out of your mind?! It will destroy you!”. Still, she moves towards it, drawn by the light and her need to know what’s inside.

She picks it up, and holds it closer, and when she does the shell breaks apart and the light fills up the sky.

Suddenly the dark shadowy figures are revealed to be tiny hurting humans, who were just wearing big scary cloaks. Just frightened little children, not the monsters they’d made themselves to be. And as this was seen, everyone calmed, and looked up… and at eachother.

And the children smiled, grateful to be seen… and slowly faded away.

The girl knelt down and tucked the seed into the earth. As she did the roots shot down and twisted out far and wide, like great rivers pushing dirt beneath the bedrock. The sprout shot up through the soil as a seedling, but then transformed into a giant old growth tree before their eyes.

The family gathered round in wonder, as flowers and fruit began forming on the tree. And as they watched the tree sped up its cycle, as if to show them how it would always be… the flowers went to fruit and the fruit went to ground and as it did it fed them, and sprouted new trees.

Suddenly the dirt turned to lush carpets of emerald clover and spread out as far as the eye could see. New trees sprang up across the landscape, because the shadows turned to birds that carried the seeds. A fresh water spring emerged from the ground and formed a river that meandered through the landscape. They recognized at that moment this source would be infinitely renewing, no matter what form or stage it appeared to be in at any one time. They saw there was no end to its abundance, just an eternal well of new beginnings.

So the people picked up their own seeds, and they planted them in the ground as well. And the trees and fruits were each unique and of great variety, and each one enhanced the landscape more and more, and created new symbiotic relationships that held and uplifted everyone.

And they were rich, all of them, rich beyond their wildest dreams, in every single meaning of the word. But it was not because of “sacrifice”. And it was not because of the treasures of the tree. It was for one far more simple reason… and that reason is that they were no longer living in fear and letting IT lead the way.

They had seen their fear for what it was, and they let LOVE lead the way instead.

And that is what set them all free and gave them everything they’d wished for. Money was not the enemy. Wanting was not the enemy. Desire was not the enemy. Even greed was not the enemy. THERE WERE NO ENEMIES… just wounded, frightened children, who wanted to be seen and loved.

And when they were seen, it unlocked a wellspring and a whole new world for everyone.

The End.
[Or rather: The Beginning 😉]

P.S. I think it’s so funny that the production costs associated with this play would have been WAY freaking higher than a family finding a seed and fighting until they just got rid of it. 😂😂 Which is so perfect, because even the play itself would have REQUIRED total abundance to be produced. (Which is also perfect, because it requires an abundant mindset to produce abundance)