Looking left out my bedroom window, I watch the sky in the East, the sun rising into a vibrant pale yellow on the horizon. Above this color, the sky takes on vanilla yellow streaks at the bottom of slow-moving clouds. I watch Grandfather Sky move gracefully, painting the shadows, blending the vanilla on the bottom with soft peaches to the top of the clouds.
I breathe deeply and exhale fully. I live in the beauty. The clouds begin to peak through the barren leaf beech, yellow birch, and tulip trees. I spy a squirrel nest of twigs and leaves very high on the top of a red oak. Old timers I know, say this portends deep winter snow. I will wait and see. To the right of and below my second-story window is a tall red-leaf maple tree with slender, graceful arms. It is still holding onto its frost-crumpled, dead leaves. Humph! What is Mother Earth saying to me about this tree?
The forest trees, the four-legged, the squirrels, and the tremendous hibernating bear called Tank are listening to the signs of Nature and preparing for what may or may not come. Not so, the red-leaf maple. She tenaciously holds onto what is useless.
We busy two-legged won't accept the slowing down of the process, a time for hibernating and reflection. Like the red maple, we hang onto what no longer benefits our soul's growth. We tenaciously hang onto outmoded beliefs, which keeps us stuck. We fear letting go because we do not know where the winds may blow or where dismissing life-long, seasoned thoughts and ideas will take us. The red maple will eventually drop its leaves, fertilizing future growth. In summer, as the sun shines through her leaves, she will grace us with red and bronze, unique, one-of-a-kind colors. Will we ever drop our outmoded beliefs, see them for what they are, and allow them to fall away to become fertilizer for a more enlightened self? Will we shine a new, unique, vibrant self in the sun?
