I found this card, lost and far away from the rest of its deck, nestled in a pile of paperwork.
I tend not to look at cards found in this way through the lens of coincidence, so I decided to sit with it for a few moments:
“What is it you’d like to tell me, as I unearth you from your hiding place?” I ask.
“I feel so liberated …”
the tree tells me.
“… when I release my leaves and allow them to be transformed by the earth into the nourishment needed for another season’s growth. Nourishment for the plants, flowers, and trees that surround me.
I do not need these leaves any more!
And what joy it gives me to know that my release is another’s gain. That these leaves have stood in their greatest glory in the Spring and Summer, and are now ready to shrivel into dust, to stand no longer in their finery, and to make way for change.
What courage, what bravery it is, to allow this transformation."
"Yes" I agreed. "What courage indeed!"
My dear there is such freedom in this release. Such power in knowing that, as I let go of the old, and stand naked in the winter’s cold breeze, I am utterly free. Free from what has gone before, and I am ready for the new; ready for the growth that will reveal itself in the season to come and the new adventures it will bring with it.
"But I'm afraid." I said. "I am familiar my leaves; they are part of me, and it's comfortable here. I don't know what lies ahead!"
"Come now. Come with me now, and walk deeply into your heart. Therein lies the courage to release the old, that which you no longer need, and to allow nature’s cycles to transform you and set you in motion to soar into your future life. You need not carry the weight of these old leaves any longer, comfortable as they may be. They have done their work, and they too are ready for their next phase.
Will you too, be this brave?
Will you too, set yourself free? Freedom awaits you at the tip of your tongue, my love, as soon as you declare:
YES! I do! I too set myself free."