Pushed or pulled, either way I move. Does it matter what force caused the change when the end result is movement? How comfortable it seems to remain still. But like water, if I’m not circulating, flowing, moving, I will stagnate. Change is inevitable. It is what sustains life. Without embracing adaptation, I might as well consider myself next in line to be consumed.
Nature models change with such ease and beauty. She shows effortlessly how to tumble through periods of turmoil. Like trees that exude grace as they bounteously bloom into leaf, offering gifts of shade and oxygen by their mere existence. When this season of giving is done they shed their leaves in another offering, regenerating the soil with their castoffs. It is then that they fall into rest. As spring returns, the tree will fearlessly bloom again embracing a cycle of change that is innate.
Are the trees conscious of their cycle? Pondering when to send forth a first bud, or drop their first leaf? How deep does their knowing run? Are there unheard languages spoken in the forest? Does their version of consciousness elude humans because it is created too pure, generous, and unassuming for us to understand? If trees feared which of them had the tinniest trunk or prettiest leaves, natural cycles would surely go awry. Existential trees could be even more problematic. Instead, they grow. They don’t resist or question their own growth. By some internal guide, they find the strength to push through oppressions like concrete in order to expand. Or perhaps it is a set of external forces that pulls them into change? Nature’s bidding that calls them to action. They listen and respond. I’d like to believe they exist through change being both pushed and pulled.
I have a lot to learn from the trees who wind wildly through all the seasons of change. Growth. Joy, Decay. Stillness. Each beautiful in its own right, offering up different aspects of what it means to be alive. A full spectrum of experience. The constraints of my humanness remain, but by trying to embrace my cycles of change I hope to make progress nonetheless. Change is what keeps me in line with nature’s cycles. Pushing and pulling me through the often ugly beginnings of spring, the beauty and wonderment of summer’s bounty, the decay of old ideas and into dormant rest to recuperate for the inevitable return of spring.
