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Today is 29/02 – a day that feels so out of place, a day that is added on every 4 years to make up the maths in time. Today I needed to make an entry, so as the year to be complete in 2024, when I share the blog entries from “picture with a meaning series”. And what if not the image before you could illustrate the concept of leaping, or rather the importance of math mathing over time.

Forgive the naïve drawing styles, although the form is never the issues, when the metaphor works just as well.

The image before you illustrate the passage of time for a plant, when it goes from seed to tree. I created this series of drawings when I tried to explain to a client with autism why they should engage with a particular program regularly. This client could not understand why doing something regularly made sense especially as the program required them to work with different people at different times and perhaps face some content they have never seen before. In their eyes if they could avoid the uncomfortable then it was perfectly logical to skip the sessions altogether. They struggle to consider that by “leaping” out of their seat and leaving is an acceptable strategy.

I had to find a way to explain why things done in sequence is useful, and why certain conditions need to be met in order for us to grow. The metaphor of the seed was the only one that came to mind, and it was the simples of examples that would make sense to them as well.

So…here is the sequence. A seed in the ground, needs water and sunshine to sprout. The ground needs to have the right nutrients (but those are so small we can’t even see them). So if the seed has enough water, warmth and nutrients it will eventually crack in the ground. In the same way as us joining a particular learning program, showing up weekly, immersing ourselves in the content and then poof at some point it starts making sense.

The seed may need time, either days or months of right conditions after cracking open for the vulnerable seedling to come to the surface. As we attend a program more, the more knowledge we acquire, the more confident we are about it – and we start growing like the little seedling.

Again time has to pass for the seedling to sprout leaves. More sunshine, more water more nutrients are needed for the seedling to become an establish plant. In the same way, the more we attend a program, the more content we pick up the stronger we feel within ourselves that we know what we are talking about.

And after months and months of water and rain and nutrients and maybe years of the same process, the seed becomes a tree.  Often as human beings we also need to work on something as a concept/knowledge whatever it is for years before we can overcome a stage in our life and move on to the next.

But of course, if the sequence is interrupted, or some of the pieces go out of alignment, the seed will not become a tree. We can not have seed – instant plant, nor can we have seed – instant tree, and we can’t have seed no water no warmth then plant.  In the same way as humans we can not experience something negative and then expect it not to affect us. In my client’s case they could not skip sessions and expect to excel at the skill they wanted to learn.  So we played about with the drawings putting them in different sequences and the client was able to recognise the importance of not skipping steps or thinking that by not being present they can pick up the skill.

So yes, the math has to math, in the same way as at some point in history when they made up the current calendar they decided that to make up the time, they needed that extra day every 4 years. (of course I can hear some people in the back that if we followed the lunar calendar we would not need a lead day – but that is a debate for a different platform).

So, my dear reader…have you been skipping steps?

Have been looking at videos online and wanting to be a 5^th dimensional light being without plunging into your shadows?

Have you been doing the work systematically so that changes can happen?

Did you take the time to mourn a loss?

Did you take the time to accept, and forgive, and love yourself for not knowing something in the moment, but then took the time to reflect after? From a place of wisdom?

Are you providing yourself the right nutrients, and right growing conditions to be able to thrive?

Did you weed out that which no longer serves you?

Have you tried something new, have you started your journey? Or do you still wait for someone magical to show up and solve things for you?

Is math mathing in your world?