This photo is taken from my favourite bench.
It's my go to place when I need some thinking time. It's where I go to add some musings to my notebook, make plans for workshops and meetings, and to just spend time outside. And this magnificent, gorgeous, splendid tree is ALWAYS my companion. I sit on the bench and regardless of what I'm doing, she is the backdrop to it all.
Boy has she seen a lot. Break ups, tears, long conversations, sun bathing, get togethers, arguments, secrets, meditations, falling in love, planning, excitement, sadness, grief, happiness. This gal has seen it all from me.
And all the while she is there, resilient, steadfast, simply doing what nature does.
During lockdown she's been a lifesaver. Every morning with my cup o' Joe I sit with her, only this time there is no planning, there are no musings, there is no interaction. It's just me and her. For once I am with her in my fullness, and it wasn't until now that I realised how much she has been taking care of me. As the world becomes quiet, and busyness fades, she is the one unchanging thing.
Through all the days I have admired her; through the cycles of bare branches in Winter, to the bounty of leaves in the Summer, and back again. She has never required, or needed anything from me. Each day she has simply shown me her magnificence and all this time she was reflecting back MY magnificence: ALL OF OUR magnificence as fellow creations of the great force that governs everything.
She has been my unfaltering constant, teaching me resilience, patience, and allowing. Giving me her shade. Showing me how to allow and how to let go: she never forces her buds to grow, she doesn't desperately hang onto her leaves when they want to fall. She just allows what is needed in each cycle. In her stillness she showed me how to be quiet. How to just be. How to simply shine as the being that I am, without needing to be any different, without hurrying, without fear of rejection or sacrifice.
So now each morning, with this conscious knowing, I sit in her medicine. I feel the heartbeat of Mother Nature through her every leaf and branch; the pulse of life that flows through all that is. And I surrender to my Great Teacher.
[image: mine]