About 10 years ago, I turned to a friend of mine and spoke aloud my greatest desire. I want to be a tree that stands still. What that means to me changes constantly every time I repeat it, every day I live, but it was and is the same goal. To be still. In it’s communal sense, I want to be the someone that is “there” for someone. A person who will listen and not judge, a person who has time for you, who makes time for you. In its personal sense, I want to quiet my mind and my body, ground myself, feel my presence without overreacting, feeling steady and comfortable in my own skin. In a metaphorical sense I want to age gracefully like a tree, shedding my leaves each year, letting the bark protect yet strip away as needed, sprouting new life each spring and providing a place for all my little chickadees to rest, eat, live, visit, fly away and return. It means so much to me to be this person, to not let anything overwhelm me and to let all nature’s seasons flow through me. But being the tree that stands still comes with a price as everything does.
It means missing out sometimes on what you don’t know, perhaps a life thats bigger, more adventurous, more productive. Being the tree is providing a home, not just physically but emotionally for people. Knowing they can rely on you means that you need to be available, not every minute, but enough that they know they can contact you soon. Being vulnerable and available is not light work. Showing up for someone means connecting. Connection and extension require action as well as stillness. I got to thinking that as still and sturdy as a tree may appear, it is absolutely full of activity and life. So many things going on in and around it. Constant motion in a seemingly motionless form. That is a tree to me…vitality, strength, availability and vulnerability. I want to be these things for the people I love and meet. I want to be these things for myself. I am aware that my desire to be this metaphorical tree stems from inner wounds I’m attempting to heal, and as our own hearts truly know, healing is a layered process that starts from the day we are born. I know what I do want to do, I want to experience life in the now, firmly rooted in my integrity but not afraid to change and not afraid to die. I want the wind to blow through me and tell my story. I want to feel that being alone is an illusion because community is everywhere. And I work towards this, everyday, to be the tree who stands still.
Yours as a tree,
Stellaluna