The Cycle of the Tree

It was the first signs of autumn. Cool, sunny days with slightly chilly nights. The trees were letting go of their foliage one leaf at a time and the squirrels had started their gathering dance as they raced to collect their winter stash. “Yes, winter is not far,” she thought as a single leaf fell past her window.

Watching as it traveled downward in a slow, gentle sway, back and forth, she knew. In her heart she knew; it was looking for a softer place to fall. “Has the tree even noticed you are gone?” she questioned. To her, the leaf paid no mind and now lay solely on the ground.

She continued to stare upon the lonely leaf, wishing somehow it could speak. Imaginary tales of spring storms and how the wind had come to call. Tales of green glory and of summer heat; this leaf had been the shadow that had offered her relief. Now she stood there longing for the words from a single fallen leaf.

Try as she might, the journey of that individual leaf would not leave her mind. Something inside was trying to make her believe the tree did not know the leaf was gone. She glanced at the tree but the tree just stood majestic. It did not bend a branch or even bow its head. “How shallow of that tree,” she thought and another leaf floated past.

Eyes still fixed, she now had two leaves lying on the ground below her window. Compassion and sorrow filled her heart as she gazed upon the fallen leaves. “Why had the tree let go so easy, not even noticed you were gone and can there really be a softer place to fall?”

She was now questioning both the leaves and the tree. One she thought so vain and shallow for not noticing what had gone. The other she felt compassion and sorrow for, just searching for that softer place to fall.

Suddenly, without notice a sense of understanding started to take hold. “I have been here before,” she thought. There was no need for assuming such emotions; it is merely, “the cycle of the tree.”

The analogy here is that we are the leaves and the tree is our lives. We all float through life in a gentle back forth motion just coping with our own cycle of the tree.

If we allow people to come into our lives and then allow them to leave without extending a kind hand or even turn our heads, we will become that shallow tree.

I say this as a reminder. Out there, right in your own community are leaves that have fallen. People who no longer can float on a journey, they are grounded. The elderly, the shut-ins, just lonely leaves. I urge you to reach out, make time,  pop in and visit, those who are searching for “a softer place to fall.”


Artwork by: Karnamrita @ PhotoBucket

Technorati Tags: Tree,leaves,Softer Place to Fall,Hope,Humanity,Jules