Kin

The Day 8 Seed Journal challenge for Milliande the on-line community I belong to is ~ "Seed Kin"
My first thought was Acorns or maybe Pine Cones... but after a bit more thought I settled on Cattails. I'm very drawn to and have a strange connection to Cattails. I love how velvety soft they are and how they bend in the wind, strong and flexible. They grow in clusters all along the ditches where I grew up, much like me and my large family of 9, standing strong as one unit. So simple, yet so profoundly complex. The Cattails have thousands of seeds that lay dormant till the fall, when the Cattail turns from brown to white and releases it's seeds. These seeds then  spread far and wide as the strong wind blows them free of the tall reeds they once called home and new life is born next spring. Simple, strong and yet so elegant.

Journal entry ~ I grew up poor. Really poor. So poor that I didn't even know I was poor. I grew up in the country, the 6th of 7 children, out in the country where my siblings and I had to make up our own entertainment. We had one TV with three channels... so needles to say we spent a great deal of time out doors, playing various ball games, tag or just hanging out. I remember going for long, long walks with one or more of my siblings down our dusty, gravel roads, kicking rocks, watching birds or the clouds flying by, and picking Cattails from the ditches. Summer time we were the Kings knights fighting off dragons or battling one another for the hand of a fair maiden. In the fall we would pluck the seeds from the Cattails and send them off into the wind to fly to far away places.

Those were much simpler times. We didn't have much but we had each other, lots of love, and the type of friendship that only blood, "Seed Kin" can have. All grown now, I too have been blown here and there by the winds of time taking root and creating my own life. I have many fond memories from my childhood. I still love going for long walks and spending time with my siblings. Life has been very good to me... Like the Cattail with it's abundance of seeds I feel I too have been blessed with abundance in life.

Always remember where you came from. Cherish it, learn from it and move on.
Cheers,
Danine