During this last chapter the author end with this two metaphors:



“From the "seed" of true self that is planted in the world at our birth to the "journey" we take through darkness toward the light.”



This quote exemplifies all what the book is about. The true self are us when God send us to the world to develop our gifts and to live our journeys that some of the time includes darkness that are in our inner side. This inner side is the one in which we have to worked on to the light can come out of us.



“Seeds move through their life stages in an endless cycle of seasons-and the cycle of seasons reminds us that the journey never ends.”

In this quote, season for Parker is a wise metaphor for the movement of life.

How he explain the seasons is like this:



Autumn
“Is a season of great beauty, but it is also a season of decline: the days grow shorter, the light is suffused, and summer’s abundance decays toward winter's death.”



Winter
“The little deaths of autumn are mild precursors to the rigor mortis of winter. To the author winter has so many gifts to give. Winter here is a demanding season-and not everyone appreciates the discipline. It is a season when death's victory can seem supreme: few creatures stir, plants do not visibly grow, and nature feels like our enemy. And yet the rigors of winter, like the diminished of autumn, are accompanied by amazing gifts.”



Spring
“Before spring becomes beautiful, it is plug ugly, nothing but mud and muck. Spring teaches me to look more carefully for the green stems of possibility: for the intuitive hunch that may turn into a larger insight for the glance or touch that may thaw a frozen relationship, for the stranger's act of kindness that makes the world seem hospitable again.”



Summer
 

“Summer is the season when all the promissory notes of autumn and winter and spring come due, and each year the debts are repaid with compound interests. Summer is a reminder that our faith is not nearly as strong as the things we profess to have faith.”