Nature Doesn’t Ask Permission

Growing Beyond the Familiar

The house in which I have lived for 22 years was built in 1998.

It was built by a local doctor and his young wife. Not only was the house custom built for the couple, but the young yard was carefully landscaped with a variety of trees, bushes, and plants native to North Carolina.

The couple could not have known that they would live in their dream home for barely a year before she would be killed in a car accident and his life changes forever.

They also could not have known that the house they built would provide a homestead to a beautiful young family with children who would grow up playing on the strategically placed giant boulders, climbing the variety of North Carolina trees, and playing 4-square and hopscotch on the long driveway.

I have tended to the landscape of this home for the last 22 years. It has nurtured me as much as I have nurtured it. Trimming the trees, hedging the bushes, mowing the lawn, and weeding the gardens have provided hours of self reflection, emotional balancing, and connection with nature.

Nature is so forgiving.

Nature is Divine perfection right in front of us every day.

Nature provides a mirror of lessons to be learned.

Today, I learned one of those lessons as I tended to the landscape of this sacred space like I have done so many times before. I was hedging the two small bushes in the front of the house when I imagined the doctor and his wife walking through the nursery at Lowes picking out these specific bushes 24 years prior. It suddenly occurred to me that while the roots and stalk of these bushes are of the original plant, the bush that I was hedging was far from the original bush. I have trimmed this bush nearly every weekend for 22 years, rendering its original growth long gone.

This looks like the same bush… it has remained in the same spot and grown in the same way for over 2 decades. However, in this moment on this day, I became very aware that the bush I was trimming was not the same exact bush that was planted so long ago. The growth that I was trimming had regrown hundreds of times…..

I then began to think about how the same is true for us as people.

Like the original small plant……. we grow.

And as we grow up, we experience life.

And life experiences cause new growth. However, we all too often disregard the new growth (in the form of new ideas, new perspectives, new ways of being ourselves) in favor of the old patterns of thought and beliefs, emotion, and behaviors despite the notion that they may no longer serve us.

Why do we keep operating as if we are living under the same conditions that are no longer true (think patterns that developed while living in our family of origin)? Or why do we keep living in the same old conditions, despite our awareness of new growth (think jobs, marriages, friendships, etc.).

We are ACTING LIKE THE ORIGINAL PLANT BOUGHT AND PLANTED DECADES BEFORE, BUT WE ARE NOT THAT.

How does one find peace and acceptance that the old growth is gone?

How can we honor the version of ourselves that is congruent with our own current growth?

Can I let myself stand tall in who I am becoming?

Can you?

The bush is here. It is strong. It is a new bush every season. It does not apologize.

I thank the bush, and the rest of nature for its wisdom,

and remain honored to be its tender for a little while longer.