Conversations with Trees

One of the seeds that I planted in my Seeds of Intention Workshop last month was to move more. Since my words come through my fingertips, rather than through spoken word, I tend to spend a great deal of time at the keyboard, and though I have not had to report to a 9 to 5 kind of job in the last year, I have been terribly sedentary for the tasks of writing, reading, editing, and re-reading.

I thought I would commit to going to a yoga class with one of my workshop attendees, but with my father’s appointments and my own standing commitments, I found it difficult to make that happen in the right timing.

Last weekend, I drove up to Tallahassee to spend the weekend with one of my Tribe Sisters to celebrate her birthday. It was there that I found inspiration. Her significant other has taken up walking each morning and evening. Despite having the wrong shoes, I joined him for ‘church’ as he calls it.

One of the symbolic tasks of planting our seeds in the garden of manifestation is to come back to the garden to see what needs more care. When I thought to commit to something that failed to manifest, it was up to me to pull some weeds and decide what else I could plant in its place.

So, with my friend’s encouragement, I started my own church… a congregation of one. I have committed to walking morning and night, and delight in checking in with him to discuss the beauty of our ‘sermons’. You see, for him… walking has become a form of devotion. Each day he exits his home into the predawn darkness and he walks into the light. At the end of the day, he walks the setting sun down the aisle and welcomes back the night. It is his own form of prayer and extreme self care. He glows with the joy of salted holy water that rises through his pores.

This morning, as I walked the streets of my neighborhood, I found myself in conversation with every tree that lined my path. Here in Florida, we experience a dance with the seasons on any given day. Lately, we have been waltzing with spring and summer with temperatures moving through the seventies and into the nineties, and I’ve heard we will have a day or two of winter this week, with temps falling into the forties at night. You never know what you might wake up to around here this time of year.

Consequently, the variety of trees that offer us their beauty are in varying states of annual evolution. Most noticeable are the oak trees, which thrive in nearly every yard. I have two in my front yard that stand sentinel and feel like great protectors of my property. As one appears to be at death’s door nearly bone bare for the loss of leaves, the other is expressing joyous rebirth in the green freshness of new life emerging from every branch.

There are also the flowering trees and shrubs like the Azaleas, which are currently screaming pink and purple at everyone who passes, and the Tabebuia trees have already passed their prime and have littered flowers of lemon yellow in yards and onto streets that surround. And we simply cannot forget the oak pollen, the film of powdered yellow-green that is painted onto every surface, as if to insist we look up to from whence it came and witness the fertility and abundance of the sacred sanctuary of our squirrels and the joyful birds that sing our welcome into each new day.

As I walk through this church of life and rebirth, it is not lost on me the way that nature and humanity mirror one another. When we witness the blossoming of new beginnings in the lives of our loved ones and feel that we have lost all of our leaves, it is not ours to grieve – but to celebrate. There is joy to be shared in the abundance of others, just as hope springs forth in our own lives. That blanket of pollen we are sprinkling onto our hopes and dreams for the manifestation of bright green new growth is only moments from being pulled back to reveal extraordinary expansion.

Just when it seems all is lost, with leaves scattered and browning upon the earth, we look up from that perceived devastation to find the glory of our own new beginnings. So, pay attention dear ones. You may think that your garden is going nowhere, but I’m willing to bet that those sprouts are rising and are about to burst forth into the sunlight of your own self-care, delivering an abundance of color and new life to fill your days with a kind of peace and happiness you have not previously imagined. I can feel it! Can’t you?

Thank you for walking this path with me. I don’t even mind the pollen when you are here. Love, love, love…

[Mucha’s Four Seasons Personified]