“When The Leaves Fall”
(From “The Gardener” by Grian)
‘Gardener,’ called the girl from the garden fence.
‘Why do some trees lose their leaves in winter, while others protect themselves from the cold with the summer leaves?’
‘Why do you wash your face each morning in the Looking Glass Spring?’
‘Why do you arrange your ribbon before the mirror each day when the sun shines through the window?’
The gardener fell silent while the girl observed him with an innocent look of surprise.
‘The water with which you wash your face in the morning is different each day,’ the gardener continued.
‘I don’t understand, sir.’
The gardener went over to the fence and, pointing to the trees in the garden, said to the girl:
‘There is not a tree that doesn’t lose its leaves. Some strip their yawning branches each autumn. Others drop their leaves little by little all through the year, while new leaves come out and take the place of the old ones. That’s why it seems to you that they don’t lose their green attire.’
‘Wouldn’t it be easier to always have the same leaves without having to change them each time?’ asked the girl, while looking at the oak tree nearby.
Doesn’t your mother make you new dresses each spring so that you will look more beautiful and you can stop wearing old ones?’
‘Yes,’ answered the girl, looking him in the eyes.
‘And when a dress becomes old, what does your mother do with it?’
‘She makes it into rags or scraps to make the bedspreads for my bed.’
‘Well, think about it. The trees make a quilt around themselves with the old leaves from the trees, that will nourish the ground from where they will later take their substance and that gives life to other plants and animals.’
An expression of happy astonishment came upon the girl’s face.
‘The trees know a lot, gardener!’
The innocence of the girl’s eyes sent a rush of energy up and down his back.
‘Be, then, wise like the trees and when life asks you to drop the old leaves from your mind and heart, have no doubts. That way your soul can have a new dress available each spring.”
Spring is often the favourite time of the year for many of us. Everyday at my ‘Tree Song’ property, I walk with my two dogs and I notice how, especially during Winter, the trees have shed their leaves, skins and limbs that once protected and defined them. The character of those trees, now discarded on the earth, enables new life to be grown and other life forms to find shelter and nourishment. This is a perennial message: how nature literally opens to new life by letting go of old ways so that it can continue to stretch beyond its known limits. Human beings are exactly the same. They say that every 7 years all our cells, the matter of our bodies, totally change. We become all new cells. We are literally not the same person. Can you imagine if as a tree, we kept all of the same bark or leaves? Our tree would collapse. Our tree would be so constricted that it wouldn’t grow. It would perhaps be strangled or die from internal pressure, stress, excess weight and more. Human beings are no different.
Within each one of us we have a unique and potent immune system. This powerful messenger and friend within has the capacity to deal with and even heal our illnesses from everyday colds to our increasingly common lifestyle diseases. Our emotions, thoughts and habitual actions are known to be triggers that stimulate the immune system to do its job. Like the tree, if our emotions, thoughts and lives are all clogged up, ‘depressed’, the bark rigid and unchanging, holding on to old ways and times, we lose our potency for ongoing care, healing and rejuvenation.
Our natural ability to fight dis-eases or chronic stress comes from a strong immune system. Our immune system literally needs the ‘Medicine of Hope’, that is, enduring and renewing creative energy and life-affirming expressions of life. Creating Hope means releasing restrictions and repressions of thinking, feeling and habits that hold us back or down. Hope is creating what is possible and sometimes what even feels impossible in our lives. We can become what we believe, feel, think and of course do. We can become what we imagine our lives to be. We have just seen the London Olympics where over and over again athletes excelled in Hope. We have even witnessed how ‘nations’ that demand only Gold can create failures and hamper ‘success’. Hope needs to be nurtured and valued no matter what the odds or outcomes are.
Next April 5-6th, I have the deep pleasure and privilege of hosting the visit of Drs Ian and Ruth Gawler to Denmark. Ian and Ruth (GP) are Australian and Internationally renowned teachers of ‘Living Well’ and will hold a one-day practical workshop for all of us in the SW, as well as an informal dinner conversation opportunity for all interested medical practitioners who are curious about how their patients can positively influence their immunity and health. In 1978 Ian, a 25-year-old vet and a marathon runner, contracted disseminated osteogenic sarcoma and, after every treatment possible, was considered a ‘hopeless case’. Essentially his life became a marathon race. After learning ‘other treatments’ such as diet, meditation and changes in thinking and lifestyle, his metastases regressed. Thirty-five years later, there has been no recurrence of his cancer. His puzzling case study has been written up in the Medical Journal of Australia (2008) and provides us with tangible Hope for things we can learn to do. This is a rare visit from two of our world’s best so ‘a must’ for all of us who want to learn how to prevent and actively deal with our current lifestyle challenges and diseases with practical Hope. Please contact me if you want to register early your interest in attending as places will be limited by the venue.