I draw lots of trees… something about them makes sense to me, not always in ways I can explain. A friend commented on the weekend that they had noticed that despite all the marks I put on the trunks and in the landscape, the leaves are bare. She wondered why…. it made me think. Often there are things I don’t perceive in what I create and this was one of those things.

Well this morning driving to work it became clear. Leaves are the evidence of life in the right now and of the season in which the tree is living in the now. Leaves live and die in our minds and yet the tree just lives. They can signal the health of the tree which they adorn and create the effect of life and abundance. Proof of a season of growth and the stage of the season it is…. but they grow to die and leave the tree. They do what they are meant to do and then are shed; falling around the tree from which they came and protecting the roots from extremes of weather; becoming soil as they loose their form and nutrient to help the next time the tree buds and green life is born. 

The tree is grounded by its roots in the soil of where it’s seed fell. Their trunks are the records of life, all that is good and bad is marked in the rings as it grows. Hence the trunks are marked and almost embossed in my way but the leaves are bare….

We are the sum total of the life that we were born with and the effects of where we have grown. Leaves are like the emotions that happen, coming and going in response to life. They are normal and natural and not to be feared. All emotions are normal and have a place. It is interesting that most people only want to encounter warm and fuzzy and happy like their life isn’t a success unless they are the only ones they feel. If we love we will know pain. If we engage with other people openly and they with us we will know the wonder of relationships and the disappointments that happen. It is just life. Emotions are like the leaves that are open to the weather and all that passes and yet they protect and support and allow other people to approach us.  They are what they are. evidence of life. 

……….that is why the leaves on my trees are empty of marking, they too shall pass……….