Journal of Sacred Work

O leaf, you give your gifts freely to me. Why have I not seen your riches before?    – Erie Chapman

  September. Summer rustles her green skirt, rises to leave her place at the head of the table of seasons.  In the Colorado Rockies, the Aspens surrender their emerald and give way way to gold. From Idaho, across the midwest and up into to Maine, oak leaves set sail on their final journey. Across the southern United States, summer hesitates, stays her warm han
d on the faces of days. Along the California coast, it’s hard to tell when summer ends and fall begins.

   However many years you have lived, you can mulitply that by four. If youv’e lived forty years, you’ve seen one hundred sixty season come and go. Or have you? Did most of them slip from your view unnoticed? Did you find yourself living most of your springs beneath flourescent lights, most of your winters indoors?…

   It’s hard to stay present to the seasons if we’ve spent most of our lives chasing from one goal to the next. Yet when people enter they final days, what do they miss most. Most people don’t wish they’d spend more time making money. Knowing they have fewer days, they find ways to put more time into each one by slowing the pace of their lives, by taking time to be present not only to the seasons but to their own lives.
   There’s no need for us to wait until our final days to live our lives. Today, do something you may not have done since you were a child. Sit with a tree and be present to her. Don’t worry, she’s not going anywhere. Close your eyes for awhile underneath her branches. She won’t mind. From behind closed eyes, brush the edge of her dress with your hands. Discover the textures of green and gold.

   I did this meditation with a tree across the street from the front of our home. I don’t know what kind it is, but here in Tennessee, it’s one of the first to lose it’s green. I’ve taken three pictures of one of its leaves for you to see(click to enlarge.) In the first image, you can see her face. The scar at two o’clock makes her more interesting, I think. Look at how early fall has already embroidered her edges.

   In the second image of the back of her underside, her vein structure is even more apparent, flexing out as if wanting to burst through the skin. She shows more green/blue than yellow from this point of view even though it’s the same leaf taken in the identical light. The other side of her scar is flashing out instead of in.

   In the final sideways view, this single leaf shows us she has yet another personality. She can mimic a butterfly! I didn’t notice this until I looked at the picture. In the background, impatiens and begonias still bloom bright. In the foreground, this leaf seems about to fly from my hand to visit each of the flowers, and on from there back to her tree in the Amazon forest.

   Okay. If you just can’t stand to leave the office or are unable to leave your home to sample the riches of nature, at least do this: Close your eyes and imagine yourself along the path through the loveliest garden you can picture. Remember, there’s no rush. During a five minute meditation, you may be able to visit the lives of many flowers or to focus the entire five minutes on just one.

   I’ve been looking at the same black and white photograph of the flower (at left) every day for many years. I took the picture more than twenty-five years ago in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The rose was cut from my mother-in-law’s garden and hangs in the wall next to the bathroom mirror. I watch this flower while shaving in the morning and while brushing my teeth in the evening. She never moves. She is always the same, and she is always different.

   What can you see in a flower after the first few glances? To me, this flower is all texture and contour and shadows. She is also as intricate as a dancer and as multi-faceted as an aria. Look at how she poises in mid darkness, her face angled toward the light, her many contours catching the light in ways more complex than a diamond.

   For a few moments, you have visited a leaf and a flower. These masterpieces are within your grasp. Open your heart to them and you will experience a season of change in your life, a time when you feel yourself easing out of the grip of daily demands and into the lap of Love. This medition brings you present to this season in the world. You can let it be a mirror for you as a caregiver who knows that presence to beauty enables you to be more present to your patients.

   Take these images with you across your day or find your own. These jewels are free and available to all whose hearts are open to the great gifts of life. Let these images be keys you carry with you. Keys that will open the door your own season of change.