And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
— Anaïs Nin

Last year, we bought seeds — pumpkins, courgettes, strawberries, and carrots — tiny promises wrapped in paper. We knelt down in the earth, drawing neat little rows for each kind. We love our garden. We plant with care, with love, with gratitude. And still…

I found myself wondering — are carrots happy growing in rows? Would they choose it for themselves? Do they even care? Maybe they do.

It isn’t nature’s way to make lines and squares, to fit life into tidy boxes. Nature moves in spirals, in soft waves, in rhythms older than memory. Seeds fall where they may — not asking for permission, not apologising, not conforming.

Nature’s freedom is unpredictable. Wild. Sometimes dangerous. You might fall onto barren ground. You might land beside a plant that stifles your growth. Yet that’s what makes her beautiful — the uniqueness of every meadow, every forest, every patch of grass.

So what is better? To be free to choose, even if our choices lead to struggle, to bruises and scars? Or to be forced into safety and health? Can something truly be healthy if it’s forced? Can you rush a seed to sprout before it’s ready?

Maybe, in all our careful planning, we rob ourselves of wonder — of the treasures waiting in the wilderness of total freedom.

In the human world, the moulds we’re pressed into, shape how we even understand freedom. We’ve grown so used to adjusting ourselves that it no longer feels like a constraint — just the way things are. We make our tiny choices within the rows we grow in, mistaking comfort for liberty.

But can you imagine being free?
Free enough to let yourself be carried by the wind to a foreign land.
To let Mother Nature raise you.
To let Water and Sun feed your body and soul.

Can you imagine being completely open to the mysteries and awe of the world — to the untamed paths no one has ever walked, wild yet full of infinite possibility?

Perhaps freedom isn’t something to be earned or taken, but something to be remembered.

Are we free?
And do we even want to be?