I've been writing alot about trees lately. There is no other time of the year when I feel their presence and their wisdom as deeply as in Autumn. This morning I sat looking out of the window at the now bare branches of the maples, oaks, ash and birch trees. Here and there woven into the branches are the nests that will stay vacant for the most part until their owners return from their winter homes to the south or wherever they have taken up a safer residence out of the cold. What struck me as I looked at them was that even without the magnificence of their leaves, they were still beautiful. There they stood with their roots deep into the earth and their arms open wide and reaching for the heavens. The winter winds and snow will beat against them in the months to come, but in the spring they will still be there to welcome the birds and squirrels back ... if their roots remain strong.
When I think about all of the storms of my life that I have weathered, I know that I have not come out at this end without some scars. I know that with age comes change both internally and externally. I see so many women who, as they get older, try to find themselves in bottles, jars and lifts. I'm not saying that we shouldn't look and feel out best. What I am saying is that the truth of who we are is not in how we are made up, but in what we are made of. Our personal truths are the roots that we plant deep, the foundations that provides us sacred ground to stand on, that give us strength to lift up our arms wide to the heavens and give thanks while we ask "okay, what's next?"
A few months ago I wrote about a tree that was a special friend to my granddaughter when she was small. When the tree came down after a very harsh winter, she was devastated. But the roots of the tree remained in the ground even as her shattered trunk lay all around her. Out of those roots planted so very deep came a new generation of green, the next ones to offer homes for the animals, and hope for the future. I guess, in the end, that's the message the trees are sending me ... hope, that, after the winter, comes the spring. Always and forever.
And so it is.
