Talking to the Trees: Release and Embrace Joy.

(This is the fourth from my collection of essays. To read the first three go here and here and here.)


A year of wonderful changes brings a spring that sparkles with energy, new beginnings and rebirth. As the plum blossoms, the yellow forsythia bushes out and the daffodils and hyacinths sway in the wind, I smile and sigh a sigh of peaceful happiness.

I want to open my arms and wrap all the blooming around myself, drink in the happiness and let it enliven my winter damp spirit. But in the sweet stillness my mind buzzes with worries: a storm may be beyond the horizon. I can let myself be happy, but what do I do? Resist.

“Release,” said the Mother Tree.

As I lean against her wide, welcoming trunk, all the above going through my mind, I hear her words and smile. She is so right, of course. So much is right in my world. So much has changed for the better, more than I ever imagined. And I am very grateful. And I want more than ever to open up and accept my gladness, my good fortune for my family and my thankfulness. But, silly as it may seem, I didn’t know how.

What I know is how to fear, cry, wish, hope and beg. I’d been doing that at the base of Mother Tree’s trunk for 3 years. Now my wishes and hopes are coming true, my fears dissolving and I don’t know how to embrace it all.

But Mother Tree did.

When she said, “Release,” she told me to cry, to smile, to laugh, to be thankful, and mostly, to let that old energy go back into the earth so that I could embrace the new energy. I could hug my renewal and rebirth. And then, I would blossom, too. And that budding, opening, unfolding would burst into creative energy that could enliven the world around me just as the plum, daffodils and hyacinth flowers energize my life.

I see a new leaf woman sculpture and sculpted masks of the wise trees in clay. Along with essays like this one gathered together to help bring this energy into the lives of others, either opening their eyes to the wisdom all around them or let them know that what they hear whispered between the leaves is true and that they are not the only ones who hear it.

Will I make all the sculptures that I envision?

Will I write all the wisdom that I hear? Will I get a chance to bring this to the world in a way that is understood and brings about renewal and rebirth to others?

I don’t know.

I do know I can embrace this new happiness, renewal and rebirth in myself. And, I can also worry that it’s too good to be true. But my heart is open and my worried mind will not stop life’s joyful changes anymore than the rain stops the blooms from blossoming.

After all, the roots need the rain to feed the limbs to grow the blossoms. So rain leads to flowering.

“Release,” said Mother Tree. I did.