g r o w t h

some periods of our growth are so confusing that

we don't even recognise that growth is happening. 

we may feel hostile or angry or weepy or hysterical or 

we may feel depressed. 

it would never occur to us, unless

we stumbled upon a book or a person who explained to us, 

that were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming 

larger, spiritually, than we were before.

whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel

the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its

shell on its way to becoming a plant.

often the feeling is anything by pleasant. 

but what is most unpleasant

is not knowing what is happening. 

those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be

waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step

should be, eventually become the periods that we realise that we are 

being prepared for the next phase of our life and that,
in all probability, a new level of the personality
is about to be revealed. 

- Alice Walker - Living By The Word -