Plum tree teachings

Ten days ago the 20' plum tree in front of my house did a slow motion dive onto a car and needed to be cut down. This Standing Person (indigenous people call trees Standing People) was a guardian to the house and provided a great home for chattering and preening finches, sparrows, hummingbirds.  It also offered partial screening for my bay windowed studio room.  Now the house feels a bit naked and exposed to the street.

Initially I was sad, but have accepted that this poor tree was living on borrowed time.  It had never been pruned properly, hadn't bloomed well this year, and apparently had serious root problems.  I wonder what in my life has not been well-grounded or has been too top heavy to flourish.  What wants to be uprooted to make more space in my life?   


And as we take our time to replace it with another tree, I'm getting used to more light, more space, and our house being more visible.  Perhaps the plum tree bowed out so we can have a bigger perspective and connect our inner worlds and the outer one.

I'm thinking of all this while my 15 year old cat's kidney problems are being diagnosed and my father falls further into Alzheimer's and physical decline.  Mostly I am holding a space of curiosity about what new thing comes on the heels of loss.  As Winter gives way to Spring, new life unfolds. 




How have you experienced loss and its unexpected gifts?  Would love to hear.  RIP, plum tree.  Thanks for everything!

Subject to Change

This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.

John Muir, that great friend of the wilds, knew that Nature is constantly in motion. Each being follows its own rhythm and cycle of change.

Those creative people who are naturalists of the human condition, experience metamorphosis in themselves and others all the time. Those with longevity, like Bob Dylan, have many lives and modes of creation as they chase their ever restless curiosity. Ever willing to be transformed, they transform others. Fans who get attached to one period or epoch may not fully appreciate that art and music and all things alive never stand still.

Even if you do not consider yourself creative, you are nonstop creative process. With each inhalation, you take on new form. On the exhale, you dissolve. We have an idea, try it out, retune it, and launch it out in the world. The response we get and our urge to create again leads to another branching idea and project. Living, breathing humans are transformation embodied.

We may shy away from this notion, for it returns us again and again to the dreaded Not Knowing. We get attached to what we know and are fearful about losing that certainty. We get stuck. We forget to wonder at the new beginning that this ending brings. If only we could trust the flow of life, we'd be carried on by the creative process and our soul evolution.

As always, to be continued...