This morning, after the days of rain, I look out over the world of green. All has awakened and come alive with this moisture, this juice of life that calls all things forth in their innate beauty. Today that beauty is green.
How effortless it all seems. How every plant, tree, and shrub pop up, declare themselves, stand erect, and announce, “I am here”. None are shy, none are judging their neighbor while wondering why their leaves are bigger or shinier. None are fearful, angry, or holding resentment. All are simply being. Doing what they are here to do, offering shade, oxygen, digging roots deep into the earth to stabilize soil, flashing a spark of color, growing to be a table or a chair, each act an offering of self. An entire existence of giving.
Watering the earth with hose water barely keeps the green alive while rainwater brings life forth in a burst of growth, a spark of truth, a shout of joy, seeming to touch the very roots of existence. What brings me to this place of growth? What fills me enough so that I allow my own growth in seeming effortlessness? Is it watching a sunset, listening to music, or making music, drawing, or painting, being near water, looking in a lover’s eyes, writing a poem, digging in the garden, reading scripture, or sitting in silence and letting the inner voice speak? There are many ways to feel watered and nourished in life but what is the one true source for letting go of worry, judgement, and fear, while offering self to the world. The lesson appears so simple as I look at the green that surrounds me and yet, to embody this awareness requires something, a letting go. We want to ask, “How?”, and yet there is no “how” the trees tell us, it is simply, “is”.
