Miami Herald columnist Ellen Kanner has a new book of essays and vegan recipes, “Feeding the Hungry Ghost: Life, Faith and What to Eat for Dinner” (New World Library, $15.95). Here is an excerpt.

Seeds are where it all begins. They promise the start of things. They’re super-concentrated sources of energy.

I look at everything growing in my backyard, from my newly sprouted purslane to the 10-foot firebush exploding with firecracker-red flowers, favorite of zebra long-wing butterflies and hummingbirds, to our 35-foot live oak, which stretches its lanky, leafy limbs out to provide shelter and canopy. They all began as seeds — everyday magic.

Nature makes that kind of magic easy. You drop a seed in the dirt, cover it with soil, give it some water, leave the sun and the seed to make friends with each other, and honey, you’re in business.

But then there’s the fine print. Firebush needs direct sun and can handle shallow, sandy South Florida soil. It’s a tough native. Purslane is supposed to be a weed and thus thrive like a weed, but mine’s anemic, timid, probably suffering from sunstroke. Even weeds have their needs, and purslane prefers filtered sunlight. A seed only fulfills its superhero potential if it gets proper nurturing.

Then there are your more metaphoric seeds (and I do love a metaphor), the new beginnings life offers you — the joy of a new job, a new love, a new home, a new baby, a new year. Such new beginnings endow you with all the energy of a seed. You’re awakening, feeling your way, tentatively reaching your roots into the soil. These kinds of seeds are times of hope; but they’re always times of change, and change is tough.

Here’s what’s even tougher — you don’t always get to choose a new beginning. Losing your job or breaking up with your partner wouldn’t make anyone’s list of Top 10 fave life events, but suddenly, there you are, in it up to your adenoids. That seed generates an energy of its own — like a tornado, it rips up your life and knocks you on your ass. It takes a herculean effort to roll out of bed in the morning. Where’s the joy in that, ace?

And while it seems to be raining seeds around you, both the happy kind and the seeds you wouldn’t even wish on your ex, think of yourself as a seed, too — a really gorgeous, spectacular, one-of-a-kind seed. But your gorgeousness can’t come into full flowering unless you, too, get the nurturing you need.

For me, it means rooting myself in my community, being part of the initiatives that bring real food and real people together. Sometimes, I confess, I need to force myself to attend this meeting, that event. But I’m almost always better for it. The people I meet inspire me and energize me and take me in directions I didn’t know I wanted to go. You’re growing oyster mushrooms? Wow, how do you do that? How can I do that? You’re teaching children to cook? Can I volunteer? I’m lucky to be nourished by my native soil.

You know best what kind of metaphoric soil you need, where you feel your happiest, truest self, where your own strength is coaxed forth, where you can set down strong roots and lift your face to the sun.

Or maybe you don’t know. Maybe you’ve been so pelted with misery seeds, you barely know what you look like, let alone what you need. They say suffering is wonderfully character-building. I say you’ve got plenty of character as it is. I say whatever’s giving you grief should just get out of your way and get out of town. Until it does, though, you’re stuck. You’re going through hell, it’s taking every ounce of your strength, and you can’t quite see how you’re ever going to return to that blissful, faraway place called normal.