Dormancy and preparation


 I love trees. They fascinate me in their variety, beauty, functionality, and resilience. This is a photo I took yesterday of one of my favorite trees, in a park near my home - a ginkgo, though most of us probably wouldn't recognize it this time of year. It just looks like a bare tree, maybe even a dead tree.

But closer inspection reveals something interesting. All along the branches are these tiny buds with just a touch of color, red and green. They're dormant now, based on the season - not enough light or warmth to allow them to grow, so they retreat and reduce growth, metabolism, and energy consumption. But the buds are signs that the tree is very much still alive, waiting for the time a few months from now when they can develop into beautiful fan-shaped leaves and begin adding new growth, as the annual cycle of rebirth again is manifest.
I have to #GiveThanks for the miracles of nature and for the principle of dormancy that these trees teach us. In addition to our nightly cycle of sleep dormancy and regeneration, it's normal, it's OK once in a while, to rest and retreat! To not be showy and impressive, to not even really be very functional in providing shade or other benefits. But yet to be waiting and preparing for a coming season when we can be functional, growing, serving again. Sometimes we need a "sabbatical" period in our lives too. But always, we know there are opportunities that will return!

 


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