Wednesday, July 12th, 2006
Yesterday in our yard I heard a cracking sound, and it was followed by the surrender of an huge and ancient plum tree as it gave way and toppled to the ground. The house we live in is over 100 years old, a farmhouse whose history lives most truly in its last witnesses, the ancient trees that encircle it.
With its falling the landscape changed. This is how the things in our life fall most often, suddenly and without warning, and when they go the landscape of our lives has changed. We stop telling our stories the same way, and find that the heart of them is even much deeper than we knew.
We often associate harvest with times of abundance, and forget that these times of abundance come into being quite often through the ashes left after destruction or times of harshness or confusion. These ashes feel empty and worthless, yet it is they that bring the fruits, and the shortest path from one to the other is hope.
The hope I speak of comes not from promises or guarantees. This hope comes from something even more substantial…learning to love and ride the waves of change so that their momentum becomes the wind that gives you flight. It is like the juice of a grape crushed in the hand, only in the crush is the juice released.
It involves surrender, and surrender involves trust. It takes trust to start a new life with only the remains of what came before. It takes trust to find strength when there is nothing to hold onto. And yet this is how we were born, and how we are each born in each moment. This is the gateway to rebirth.
As you go to sleep tonight dream about your rebirth, what you would like to let go of and make new in your life…what grapes may be waiting outside your window to be crushed into the juice of your future or continued abundance.
