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Thursday, January 28, 2016

On Roots & Treetops & Powers that Move





There is a power that moves 
in such submission through the world: 
groping in roots, and growing thick in trunks, 
and in treetops, like a rising of the dead.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke
(Image: Vincent van Gogh - Tree Roots and Trunks)

                  
When I saw this post from The Bloomsbury Review via Charter for Compassion (I really need to research them), one word of Rilke’s quote leaped out at me in conjunction with Van Gogh’s rendition Tree Roots and Trunks.

Submission.

Submission is not a word or concept I link with Vincent.

I do not see submission in Tree Roots and Trunks.  I see images of beings reaching with the support of green growth & hope reaching toward the light.
 
I see roots growing thick in trucks & treetops still reaching, fighting toward the light. 

I see a struggle to survive.  I hope that struggle has the power to move toward change.

I see hope.  I see a power in roots & trunks & treetops rising not from the dead, but from the hope & strength of reaching toward the light & maintaining position.

Which I pray fervently is still alive.  

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

A Christmas Lesson from my Sister, via Tulips


On Christmas Day this year my sister Janet & her husband David arrived with presents & tulips.  Without my niece Emily Kate or her fiancĂ© Zach or the Douglas dog & my special friend, Ms. Zoe.

But my sister brought tulips.  Red tulip bulbs resting in water in a large cylinder vase.  The tulips were lovely, but the cylinder vase confused me.  I never put tulips, or blooming tulip bulbs in a cylinder vase.

Enthusiastically, my dear sister explained to me that the vase would prevent the tulips from bending to reach toward the sunlight.  

As I listened to her explain how to care for the bulbs (a tiny offshoot bulb caught her eye), I thought how she took time & care bringing them to me, knowing how much I love fresh flowers & color. 

It is what my sister does – giving me something that is so very Jaki Jean.

I did not have the heart or need to tell her that I have always loved how tulips bend & reach for the light, returning to home base when the light fades.

At first, I did not know what to think of the bending & reaching toward the light confined to a cylinder designed to keep them upright.

Day after day, I tended the tulip blooms bound in a cylinder, adding more water & turning the cylinder when the blossoms escaping the stems' confined space kept reaching toward the light.

I realized as I watched my red tulips that there is something to be said for standing tall, for working within boundaries & still managing to reach for the light. Without bending.

I am quite certain that no tulips I have purchased & placed in any vase have ever lasted as long as my sister’s gift.

As will my Christmas lesson – stand tall, bend & reach, but don’t get distracted from the goal by bending & reaching in too many directions.

That tiny offshoot & all the bulbs survived the cylinder.