As I approach 50, my daily strolls are full 
of a sudden fascination with flowers. 
What does it mean to drop your petals, 
release your children, 
and become something entirely new but old?! 
I admire the steadfast strategy of bulbs, 
springing up in yellow, purple, pink and red 
to seduce a kiss of seed and pollen, 
while also holding a dual reserve 
deep underground in quiet retreat. 
What does it mean when a plant falls into gravity, 
its energy drawn down 
into the dark tunnels of roots? 
Surely, there is strength in the gathering of sugars, 
made with leaf in partnership with the sun, 
to weather the winter? 
In the spring of old age, 
I find comfort in whole fields of flowers, 
propped up by each other, 
moving from earth to sun to earth all together.

Energy 
cannot be created or destroyed, 
but oh how it transforms! 
From seed to skeleton
life grows and sheds, 
sheds and grows. 
Like a game of tag 
the salmon becomes seal, 
the seal a shark, and the shark 
feeds life on the sea floor. 
From seed to grass, 
grass to vole, 
vole to owl, 
owl to earth. 
Tag you’re it. 
Endings are sad, 
new beginnings are sweet, 
waves of form, break and re-form.
Catch a wave and ride it for as long as you can.

To you who still feel, who have not gone numb, who cannot compartmentalize between your professional self and who you are deep in the night. 
You are not broken, you are the lattice holding up our world. 
Let your tears flow, beyond your body into collective wells of river, cloud and ocean.  
Mind you, take breaks and rest often. 
Find high ground before floods. 
Feeling is work, connection takes work and it is hard. There are no paychecks or thank you’s for the work of the world. Only the clear eyed joy of looking up at a hundred geese flying north on the beat of a feeling to gather, 
to be together for the young ones. 
Life on earth depends on connection, 
Earth is crying out to you who can still feel. 
May you gather the strength to be soft, to feel and heal. 
Let your tears flow, let them move you, they are for the rivers, clouds and ocean.

Time with trees is never wasted, and feels like no time at all. 
An oak respires and transpires, 
everyday as the sun rises and sets,
seeming to breathe just outside my awareness.
Try as I might to catch the leaves growing, 
they unfurl only when I look away.
Standing next to an oak, I breathe slow and deep. 
For a second I am in tree time, 
rooted right here for 600 years of deep time. 

I have a tree spot, 
a place where I sit under a broad walnut tree. 
It's a place where I air my problems and leave lighter,
sometimes with answers. 

Find a tree and sit awhile,
a shrub or any plant will do. 
Look closely as if to draw it later:
greens and browns of leaf, 
the textures of bark.
Listen, does it rustle in a breeze?
Then close your eyes, 
imagine your tree.
Ask yourself, what do I feel?
Make this place your very own tree spot,
come back and note how it changes!
And how you change too.