Ever appreciative of nature, today when I let my gaze focus softly on the fall color around me I became very aware of the many lessons to be learned from trees. Now, I am aware that this is NOT a new topic. In fact, when I reached the end of my journaling about trees, I recalled one of my favorite books, Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree:
If you are not familiar with this one, please check it out. It is one of the most precious gifts I think I’ve given.
That said, today’s version of tree exploration landed in a very different place than did The Giving Tree. As I let my awareness focus on the tree and all the ways I might align my life with that of the beautiful deciduous trees I so love, I discovered that sometimes a tree is just a tree, being a tree. Yet sometimes:
- it is an umbrella giving protection from the rain or the sun
- it is sustenance as the leaves it drops decompose and nourish the soil or its sap, nuts and berries provide food for animal and human
- it is beauty – majestic, tall, strong
- it grows, expands its reach each year with tender, small, vulnerable branches which, over time, grow stronger
- it needs to let go, needs pruning, that what remains has room to blossom
- it suffers greatly from the elements
- it needs the help of mankind or other trees for support
- it cycles annually through rich and visible outer manifestation and the outwardly barren yet inwardly alive winter hibernation
I am SO like that tree! Sometimes, I get to be just me being me. At other times I am helper or helped — beauty or barren — expressive or inward focused.
What season is your tree navigating now?