I’m so exhausted. And I feel like I ought to be seeking the veriditas that Hildegard speaks of… that I believe in… that I’m hungry for. Its that greening, that sense of growth and anticipation of new things… its optimism and deliberately moving through the world seeking the small, green glimpses of life that is the evidence of Spirit-nurturing.
But then, as I put rubbish out this morning, an overcast, grey Saturday morning, feeling the weariness of hard things bearing down on me, I spotted the tree on our nature-strip: it’s lost most of its leaves as it hunkers down for another Melbourne winter. The remaining leaves are beautiful: orange and green and burnt ochre: breaktakingly unique.
I am reminded that when we moved in here, that tree was a broken, 20cm-high stump of a sapling that one of the builders had driven over with a truck. We put bricks around it to protect it and left it to heal. And, as the seasons have rolled past, it has grown – its taller than me now, sending strong, tall branches towards the sky, full of bright green leaves when its time for them.
And I am reminded of the reality of the cycle of life – this tree has grown and flourished, not despite the autumn seasons and the shedding of its green-ness, but because of it. As the cold arrives, it conserves its resources, sinking itself back to its roots, growing and consolidating itself, far beneath the ground so that when the weather grows warmer and the sun comes back, it can throw its arms back upwards and reach for the blue sky.
If the broken-down tree on my nature-strip can happily abide by the rhythms of the seasons and can thrive and grow, surely I can find a way to be like the trees, and relax into the beauty of this moment, to observe myself: notice the fragility in the edges of tattered emotional leaves, and surrender myself to the season as it arrives.
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