There is a patch of wood that I love. It isn’t mine, but everyone who knows me knows that it belongs to me. I wrote my name in the treeline long ago, and I brush my fingertips through its branches. Its waters flow towards me in friendship.
A few years ago the conditions were just right for repeated storms to decimate the landscape. Ice and rain and snow cycled through for days and the forest was unrecognizable as itself. Trees I had known and loved were ripped sideways and hundreds of their friends were in pieces on the trails. I felt unexpected grief at the loss of so much beauty. It was a war zone of weather.
Moving in time to today, the downed trees are an integral part of a new backdrop and there is strong adolescent growth taking place. The trees have laid aside their claim for space to make room for what is coming, more comfortable with destruction than we are. They understand that creation always looks destructive because it is.
As tensions rise and the intensity of these years comes to a head this week, it does not escape me that millions of people will feel the desolation of looking around at what has occurred, no matter what the result. The invitation of the trees is to remember that creation time is longer than human time and that it is important to let change ravage the landscape of our lives.
It will be uncomfortable and scary.
Change always is.
Trust always is.
Wishing you peace and peace and even more peace,
xox
❤️
A great view of the importance of destruction in order for there to be creation. I loved the reference to fallen trees as “friends” of the ones you were familiar with, and that creation time is longer that human time…