DAY 360

open nature

When I uploaded this image and looked at it carefully, I realized that the words that I first thought to write to accompany it were not adequate anymore

They still were right and fair:  I wanted to write about the beauty of bare branches and it´s symbolism from the point of view of detachment, and sure enough, these branches are very charming  and quite symbolic and they speak loud and clear about the great importance of letting go in order to reborn... but the photo had stirred up some feelings that were less generic and much more deeper and personal

These structures that hang off the branch are like tiny carapaces that contain the seeds of a wonderful tree that produces the most beautiful flowers and they appear when the swarm of mauve petals starts to wither. They are not soft and maybe not so appealing, but they definitely catch the eye. They keep firmly closed for a long time but then (I don´t know exactly why, I guess that climate has something to do with this) they start to open and one realizes that they are like a hinged shell which are cleverly designed to permit the seeds to fly away in the right moment

While I was looking at the photo I could see  the whole process in my mind: the grown up tree, the tree blooming and the flowers falling ceaselessly, those capsules appearing, the seeds taking wing and travelling all over the city and then taking land in a totally different place... 

And then I thought that in every life there are flowers which bloom and fall and let a seeds able to create a better existence enclosed in a perfect and impenetrable container

These flowers are our experiences, they can be made with joy or sadness, but they are flowers anyway because every of them is related to a valuable learning regardless how they were lived, through laughs or through tears. Most of the times, this learning comes encapsulated in a small case that will remain open when ripe. But unlike the botanical containers, the process of opening is not always automatic because of our free will

Of course,  we will need propitious circumstances, we will need time, but much more than this:

We will need courage, we will need intention and perseverance, we will need clarity and awareness, we will need a bit of help sometimes and great doses of confidence and lightness. If we trust and don´t expect too much, we will see how the tiny seeds of learning, free from their seclusion, start to give rise to new hopes