Roots

As I sit here and watch the incense smoke dance through my space, I realize that the smoke just is. It doesn’t judge itself for changing, it doesn’t resist the environment that acts upon it, it just is. And it’s beautiful- every moment, soothing my nerves, reminding me of the power of impermanence. Sometimes I wonder if life is one big embodiment of impermanence- chaos shoving me out of homes and relationships, only to look back and find so much joy. Joy in dark spaces, like a seedling hatching and knowing which way is up, towards the light.

I am grateful for that boone in a frequently dark world. That darkness is here for a while yet, winter stretching on and urging me to find solitude, to ground within myself, to allow my roots to spread and dig deep, through rock and Crystal and ore; to build networks and allow symbiotic relationships to form, to nurture my entire system. From here is where the tree grows strong, where it can communicate and share nurturance with Community. And I’m realizing my tree has been ill. It’s been giving all that’s left with no stores to rely upon, so we uproot. We cut away the dead, rotten roots, we untangle and clean the rest, build a regiment of nurturance because, while the tree will grow strong again with time, it is frail and delicate and needs consistent, careful care.

As it goes back into the cold ground, it can’t remember up from down, the shock of starting again overwhelming the system. This environment, the one that rotted the roots away, it’s dark and volatile- yet it is the very same one that will nurture and teach the tree best. For it is home, even when it feels achy; each day in the cold soil becomes easier, the roots adjust and release tension, acclimating to the care they receive from above and it begins to spread more than just life through the hallow, sleeping soil.

As life begins to flow around the tree, its roots remember all the care and all the pain. They reach out for mycelium networks, knowing now to live in flow, to assess its own stores first. The tree knows not but growth, steady on its own terms and pace, never wondering why it isn’t growing like the others. The tree thinks not because it now knows to be, and how does it know? It remembers, always, where the light is, where the care is- in itself and its roots. I’ve been thinking about my own roots. Which ones need shearing? Which ones hold the whole network together? I believe first, that I am the light. I am the nurturance and the surgeon as well as the tree. I am the ecosystem that is in flux, always cycling. I am my own light, and that light must serve me first.