I’ve been busy buying new containers and re-potting my plants. The two bonsai on the right look lovely (though the blue fir furthest right could do with a saucer that fits better), and the aloe vera looks great in its new red container, look at the size of it: a baby no more!

For all of us, if we want to grow bigger, there comes a point where we must be planted into bigger containers. In practice, this means putting ourselves into more challenging situations: going for that promotion, aiming higher, overcoming a fear, asking that pretty girl out on a date, booking a bigger location to play a gig. It is by doing bigger things that we grow bigger. And while we’re at it, if we’re putting ourselves in bigger containers, let’s also make them beautiful. Presentation is key for attractiveness, and attractiveness is what makes our dreams come true and brings the best life has to offer right to us, so that we may enjoy the splendour of our earthly existence. What could be better than that?

On Paulo’s advice, I’ve been watering this sole surviving blue fir more regularly, and it’s shown in the upwards growth of the plant. Water is so vital a thing, that if there isn’t enough, growing energy goes into the root system, to try to reach more moist areas, and hence the lack of top-side growth I was seeing.

This makes me wonder about what sort of things we need for growth. Sure, like plants we can survive with limited resources, but we cannot thrive. What we need then, if we want to raise our level of experience from merely surviving to positively thriving, is to take care of our basic needs. Get enough water, enough food of good quality and varied vitamin content, enough exercise, and especially, enough sleep. Taking care of these basic needs - the foundation and root-system if you like - we then have the energy to grow topside, the area of higher ideals, dreams, emotional fulfillment, creavite pursuits, and good social interaction, sharing ideas and company.

Take care of your foundations, and all else will follow.

It’s important for a plant to be in an appropriate container. Too small, and it won’t be able to grow any larger (perhaps even dying from a lack of growth). Not well enough draining (or too draining), and it’ll have trouble keeping up a good water content. I repotted the surviving blue firs again, back into a smaller (but more stable and less well draining) pot, and after all that talk of survival of the fittest early on when so many of them germinated, we have a winner. I’m now looking forward to seeing this guy grow well, he’s already spent quite a while strengthening his trunk there, which is the sort of growth that isn’t always noticable, and you could be forgiven for thinking nothing was happening.

The baby aloe has found a pot of its own now. Being unsure of how to propagate it once it grew off the parent plant, I put the decision off. Then one day I saw it was in a sorry state, as was the parent plant. Suddenly I had two plants where there was once one, and the competition for nutrients was reflected in their health. A quick bit of research, a sharp knife cut later, and the baby was transplanted (along with a good portion of root system) into a new home, and now I put care and attention into both to aid their recovery.

When we, as people, only view ourselves in a small way, it is as if we are growing in a small pot. Naturally this restricts our growth, and can turn out very unpleasant indeed. In the words of Charlotte Joko Beck, we need to learn our ABC’s, and become A Bigger Container. Doing that, we’ll have space to deal with life more easily, to grow, and not be lost among our transitory identifications. Instead, perhaps we’ll be able to glimpse the vastness of who we really are. And wouldn’t that be just magnificient?