Day 62
generosity
Yesterday I watched giant trees bend in the wind, and it seemed impossible that they would survive to stand tall and still again. I also, watched a tree fall. It is intense to see a tree that may be thirty to forty feet come crashing down. I know though, that it will nourish the forest over time, or that it will provide heat for us in the winter. Once again, the trees are my teachers. They model peaceful resistance, simply using every resource to become stronger, giving shelter to all the more vulnerable plants and creatures. They literally give us the air that we breathe, and in my case, the wood that keeps from freezing to death in the winter. They are powerful, but peaceful. They are not passive, but industrious, efficient, resisting all kinds of disease, weather and even the destructive force of human appetites. Yes, they succumb; but in their deaths, they surrender every cell to the soil that fed them. They become a different kind of shelter for different kinds of creatures, and they give life to their own kind.
Oh, and they are beautiful.
I have decided to model my life after the lives of trees. I will learn to lean into the seasons of life, some that take me to dormancy, some that come like spring-explosions of growth, and some that require me to surrender all that I have become, again. I will learn to embody strength and bend in storms, only to come back to my tall, stately stature when it passes. I will grow slowly, with patience, taking what I need in balance with a deep and indiscriminate generosity. I want each exhale to benefit all life. Like a tree, I want to be here as long as possible, reaching for the sky while mindfully stretching deep into this earth. And when I finally wither, or crash to the ground, I want that too to be an act of generosity and love—a falling down to meet again the very thing that gave me life.
