Who can deny how powerful Spring is? It’s the act of coming alive in a single pirouette of breath and energy. The beginning is the single most powerful event of all things “being”. It is mighty…but produces us in our most delicate and vulnerable state.
The beginning of life…the beginning of change…the beginning of an end…
Whatever your beginning might be, its very reminiscent of the shifts in energy witnessed during the Spring. And much like our humanly beginnings, we can also find connections to the beginning of other living things like animals or plants.
When a seed is planted it begins its growth cycle. Relying on various elements such as the love and attention it gets from its planter, to the food and warmth from the sun, it is nursed through a momentous change: a new beginning as an evolved being.
However, although evolved, it is a in a delicate and fragile state; it is only a sapling still.
If you are patient enough you can witness from seed to sprout…an act of creation before your very eyes. Although it seems healthy and determined, the hardest part is yet to come for that little sapling; for it to bloom into the sweet and fragrant fruit tree that it was made to be.
Today…I killed a sapling.
I saw two tiny green leaves. They were just starting to separate from the stem- their life source. With a timid innocence they peaked behind their open fingers into the world around them. The world they would exist in and one day bear their fruit.
Bold, bright, and tiny, the sapling stood proud and tall with intention, like a castle guard.
I greeted the sapling that morning and spent a few moments in its wonderment of its beauty and journey into existence. With a humbleness, I smiled and watered the sprout.
It was the tiniest, simplest masterpiece.
This evening I found the sapling withered, brown and dead.
I had drowned it.
Panicked, I had thought back to the morning when I had watered it last.
I remembered being excited for the bloom. And I remember wanting more…more results, more growth. Faster, quicker! I guess in my blurred notions, I reasoned that it also meant “more water”.
Overbearing it with more than it could handle in such a delicate state, it was smothered and killed.
A sadness came over me as I stood looking down at the helpless, lifeless twig. I felt regret and shame that I’d let it down to appease my own desires.
And with this message; just like the spring; just like a sprouting seed, just like that a change was born. A message was heard.
Though creation is powerful it is extremely fragile. The beginning of change or creation is followed by a period of vulnerability that must be respected. If you can master the humble and gentle dedication to a sapling it will without doubt, one day, bear its fruits.
