A Japanese Maple for the Future
Last week I planted a Japanese maple on the allotment. It'll be 10 years for this tree to mature and then it will thrive beyond my life.
When you feel into the magnificence of some gardens you see, do you ever wonder who created them? What was their vision for the future?
The Pyramids were built around 2,870 BC. Yet the farmers who most likely built them weren't around to see the fruits of their labours...
What will be your legacy?
A couple of years ago I was working in a travel office and on the cycle ride in to work I'd pass a large, newly sold house. Each successive day during the Spring different plants appeared in the garden, then larger plants and finally some really big palm trees. Now these weren’t the 4ft bare root I’ve just planted, they were large trees!
These days we can buy a garden. The vision we see, we can have. Click. No waiting required. No seasons, no cycles of life. Maybe if you have kids this is a little like skipping straight to the 35 year old adult…
For our whole being to change, for new roots to embed and branches to grow it takes time. A click, an idea, or a single class won't do it. We have to stay the course of a period of time. When we orient our lives towards what is important for us, we reshape our lives so our new self can come into being. It takes time and regular practice for our body and nervous system to reconfigure. And, like a tree, we'll do this little by little, planting roots and spreading branches.
The different values we choose to live by, and skilful actions we take, help us embody this new and emerging sense of being. Every day our roots grow a little deeper as we transform into the change we've declared for ourselves. Someone said to me once when I was deep in the pit of despair at the end of one cycle of life “Duncan, it could take 10 years.” Meaningful work will take time.
How are you impacting the world?
When our leaders lack the imagination the future needs, we cry out for the bold, visionaries to step forward. It is the poverty of the imagination and the loss of our connection to nature, mystery and the unseen that usher in the closing stages of a civilisation. The wisdom of old stories remain unspoken. We acknowledge that the material structures we’ve built our grandiose successes upon don’t have the roots to withstand times when the dark rains fall.
In our different ways we are all needed.
Who will you be in 10 years time?
