Nature’s Cup Runneth Over, We Can Take Sips

Everywhere I go, I can’t help but feel like the trees are waving to me. It’s almost like they are encouraging me — applauding me as their leaves shimmer in the summer breeze and their lightest branches bob up and down with excitement. Every window I glance out of, there they are, greeting me with the brightest and warmest dance. Every tree-lined road I drive down, they line up alongside to wave me on, for miles and miles, every last fiber of their being is waving and dancing and jumping to and fro in the golden sunbeams, hardly able to contain their excitement at the opportunity to hold my attention for just a passing moment. As I pass one by, waving and dancing and shimmering in all its glory, it shouts to the next tree in line, “Here she comes!” and every tree down the line just bounces in frenzy and fervor, buzzes with pleasure and pure joy. I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve such a warm welcome, but it’s unfailing.

I’ve always loved trees. When I was a kid, they were one of the first things I learned how to draw, and I loved to climb them — and I still do. It’s just a matter of finding one with low enough branches to get started, or finding someone to boost me up. But once I’m up, I enter another dimension — the tree’s world. Shaded by her thick cover of leaves, cradled by her strong branches — I could sit up there for hours. Or I could lie beneath her shade in the grass, and watch her big green leaves twirl about in the wind — so much energy with hardly any place to go — casting the most incredible contrast against summer’s blue sky.

Each time I look upon a tree seemingly at rest, it suddenly activates as its branches begin to lift up ever so gently and its leaves begin swirling and swooning all over, bouncing with excitement at the sensation of my contemplation. How lucky I feel to be me when I am graced with such a reaction. It makes me feel as though I am an old friend of each and every tree, of nature herself; sometimes she sends a postcard to catch up, in the whirlwind of excitement a stray leaf detaches and falls down to me. Words are written there in a language I understand but don’t read — it’s more of a feeling, a knowing. I look at the palm of my hand and see that same language written there, and I know that the tree and I are not far off from each other, distant relatives — infinitely different creatures but still with so many similarities…

We are both rooted to the Earth: she, literally, and I, figuratively. With roots stretching down to Hell, branches might reach up to Heaven, as Jung said. We both know this in our essence, and so we reach and reach, we stretch limb and lumber, down and in and so up and out. Dive deep, dive dark and then reach for the sky, reach for the stars. Dance in the sun. Rustle in the moonlight.

Both upright beings, we know we must stand tall to be strong; we feel the force of gravity impressing down upon us in every moment, but we never let it win, never let it topple us to the ground. This is easier for the tree as her roots go deep and hold tight, and so it’s easier for us the deeper and tighter our roots hold.

Thick bark helps her prevail against all elements, as does thick skin for us.

For her, every fourth season is a season of death and decay, of coldness, endings, letting go — of the beautiful leaves she worked so hard to create, of the fruit she put all her sweetness into — without any resistance to that natural procession of things. We too go through seasons of death in our lives, times of letting go of something or someone, letting a part of ourselves die — something that no longer serves us or fits who we know in our heart we are becoming — whether it be with grace or in a struggle, so that we might ultimately be reborn again in the spring, even more beautiful and strong than yesteryear, even more capable, even farther along on our path than we’ve ever been. Neither us nor the tree has any say in this process, for once it takes hold there is no going back — so it’s best to lean into it, to welcome it with an open heart and mind, to know that the pain it brings is for the better and will lead to the promised land, to the blooming beauty of the next spring in our lives, with all of her bright and colorful flowers, and refreshingly green new leaves — these are akin to our new bright ideas and mindsets and goals after a deep death and rebirth process.

And so we can draw many similarities between ourselves and the trees, and we know deep down that these truths are both vital and revitalizing. They require almost no conscious integration, for once we know them, we know them in our heart forever. We can compare ourselves to any part of the endlessly overflowing cup nature runneth over, with infinite truths to be found in these reflections. It’s just a matter of having an open heart and a curious mind, and the lessons seem to unravel themselves before our very eyes, written in stone so they won’t soon be forgotten.

© 2021 Jessica Wolf