Creative celebration

How is it possible to look at something every morning and throughout the day and yet not see?

I have called her The Old Woman since I first saw her.  I could not tell, with fall turning into winter, whether she was alive or not. Her stripped branches reaching upward, a reminder of days of glory, life and dance.  This afternoon my eyes that do not see, noticed a branch reaching out from her empty trunk. The Old Woman was very much alive.  It had gone unseen.  Immediately I saw a bush growing that threatened the only source of life that remained.  Throughout the afternoon I pondered the branch and the encroaching bush.  Finally I decided the bush had to go. With shears in hand I set out to defend the branch.  To my wonder, the bush was not a bush.  It was a banquet of life celebrating the Old Woman’s Fertility and Life. The bush was an explosion of life extending from exposed roots.  The branch I set out to defend was, in some ways, supported by the life reaching upward from roots that had been transformed into a new trunk.

Nature knows the pruning of life is creation and creativity.  What time, harsh seasons and who knows what had drained and taken, perhaps in greed, the creativity, the artist of renewal simply found another way to dance and celebrate. And with her wisdom, I sat beside her, whispering ‘Why would my life, my trunk and roots be any different?’  Sometimes, it just takes my eyes a little longer to see.  The shears are back in the garage and I celebrate Nature and her mentoring trees, bowing in wonder to The Old Woman.