winds of change

Summer is ending, the seasons shift and the rains return. The winds have calmed, the constant chimes are still, the air thick and heavy with anticipation. The light rain washes the dust from the walnut leaves, shakes the year’s dirt from its surfaces so it can take in the rains that are to come. Cleaning and preparing, the color returning to the landscape, the deeper darks and the richness of the fertile soil spring to life as the waters are absorbed, integrated into itself. Reanimating that which was in stillness, hiding from the harsh heat of the summer sun.

The tall spindly plant, bolted from lack of light, was snapped at the base by falling debris. Stood back in place and bound with twine it had accepted the mending and bloomed anew. Each joint, each node producing new growth, each knot and elbow a new sprout, like twenty plants began to grow anew from its wounded stem. It leans now, reaching even farther into the sunlight, bracing itself on a nearby mister to curve into the light.

I will propagate a forest of them, there will be plenty and company and good soil. Each one will spring forth into its own plant, independent and yet interrelated, a tiny plant village brought forth from one lone stem, the broken place stimulating new life, new growth, new beginnings. No longer alone, the plant has produced its own company.

Probably some evolutionary wisdom that says we are broken, let us make new life to use our dying structure as fuel for the next generation. Like the break forced a rebirth, cut off from its roots it made a million babies, as if they could redeem its death by living on in its place. There was always enough light. The limited soil, the small pot, the sporadic watering, nothing told it to grow. Until it was broken. Then life sprung from every crack and crevice to cover the barren stem as if to say I will not go quietly, I will not just lay down and give up. I will fight until the finish, until there is no sap left to rise.

I will grow and twist and push and reach and I will use what is there to make more. The break is a sign to move into the next phase. No longer content to stand strong and strive, the time has come to multiply, shatter, disperse. Each tiny piece containing the whole, each one a seed ready to grow where it’s planted, eat what is on its plate, and thrive.