reVoice

Riva Capellari

[email protected]

Located in Brookside in the heart of Kansas City

Generating

Somewhere along the continuum of my yearly life I began to set deadlines motivated and triggered by the season changes. I haul my Christmas tree outdoors in January as a shelter for the birds during cold, blustery winter days, but I cut off a few small twigs of pine needles to put in vases around the house for my winter home décor. Then for some reason, I assigned March 1st as the day when I emptied all vases of their by now dried and falling apart pine twigs and cleared by outdoor porch table-scape of its basket full of pine cones. Everything winter is put away while I ready my home for the onslaught of spring.

I don’t think I realize or at least pay enough attention to how the seasonal changes effect the running of my life. There is the big stuff like raking leaves and shoveling snow, planting new flowers and pulling weeds, but there is also more subtle shifting going on beneath the outward show.

Time marches on not in a linear fashion, but in cycles. The other day, while it was wildly snowing outside, I sat in my sun-room and noticed the beauty of the skeletal trees silhouetted against the sky, pockets of almost blinding blue peeking through the web of bare bones branches. It’s in this season that these trees take on their own character. Their personal identity which is hidden by leaves most of the year, is revealed in their naked structure.

The “circle of life” as they sing in the “Lion King” measures the essential rhythmic process of decay and growth, decomposition and generation. We all experience our own individual seasons of flourishing, and those that seem dormant or stagnant. But trees understand their blossoming can only take place after a time of rest, a rest which feeds their roots of resilience against the blasts of winter so in the spring, once again, they bring forth the greenery we await. They offer us proof of steadfast continuity. They give us hope to endure.

As I sit quietly enjoying the soft fluff of snow turning the landscape to white, I suddenly notice tiny small buds on the tree next door. Trees may seem to stand still, but actually, they are refueling, preparing for the moment when those buds spring to life.

So I am going to try to be more like a tree, gathering energy now to fire-up my spirit, rekindle my passion, so that I may continue to grow and be part of the world.

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