Grow with the flow.

Some years ago I was gazing up into the leafy branches of a tree that was being pruned and had an epiphany. A TREE JUST GOES ON ABOUT ITS BUSINESS. It gives equal attention to a torrential rain, high winds, a forest fire or another species with pruning shears...exactly none. What a tree continues to do is use all of its energy to grow.

There was absolutely no belly aching from this tree as its limbs were systematically severed. No outcry of wrong doing. No 'woe is me' speculation as to its fate minus those carefully cultivated appendages. I imagined its roots, in the midst of this mayhem, steadily climbing in there down and out direction. I could easily see the outward manifestation of its efforts. This was a huge tree and it stands to reason that some time ago it was just a spindly twig, and some time beforwe that a little seed with glorious aspirations.

I think about that tree when I am rocked by the loss of a loved one. I consider the tree when my feelings are crushed beneath the boot of someone I adore. The tree is foremost in my mind when the world does not comply with my desires.

I hope that even now I'm planting little seeds that will germinate in the mind of a reader and start a forest of people who just grow.