Letting Go – Day 6
Consider another way that trees can teach us about letting go. Every year they go through changes as the seasons come and go. They don’t fight against losing their leaves in the autumn, or consciously compete with other trees to see whose blossoms are the prettiest, biggest, or most abundant. They stand naked and vulnerable for months of the year, trusting that this lean time will end and make way for something new and abundant. Even when we put our own mark on them, pruning them to a more pleasing shape or in a way that will provide a more abundant crop, they adapt. They don’t mourn for the branches that were taken or define themselves as any less than what they are without them.
Plants in their fabulous complexity are simple in that they just are. They don’t know how to be anything else. It’s only humans who try to change who we are to fit into the role that others (or ourselves) deem most suitable and appropriate. We may fear letting go of things because we will be seen as failures or lacking ambition. Imagine telling a tree that it had no ambition, or a rosebush that its perfect, solitary bloom meant utter failure. These understandings of supposedly human tendencies are no less ridiculous when applied to ourselves.
This is a reminder to look for the teacher in everything we see, every person we meet, and every experience we have. Let go of the human assumption that we are in some way better informed about how life is to be lived, or better equipped to make decisions about the shape of our reality than all the beings that surround us. Take note of the variety of beautiful forms that letting go takes, gently and easily, all around you. And stop thinking for a moment. Let yourself just be, like a plant.
