Did you ever stop to think that bark on trees used to be on their insides?
In a process called “secondary growth”, the inner part of a growing tree divides its energy between the “inner bark” and the creation of wood. This inner bark shuttles nutrients throughout the tree and, as it ages, is pushed further and further from the center, slowly dying, drying out, becoming the exterior bark that we feel when we place our hands on their trunks.
At the same time, the inner wood goes through cycles, creating lighter colored wood in the spring when sunlight and water and plentiful, and darker wood in the colder months when the sun and water retreat for the season. This pattern of lighter then darker wood made throughout time form the “rings” we see when a tree is cut down exposing the inner portion of its trunk. These rings reveal truths about the conditions and responses for each season of a tree’s life.
The entire being of a tree is a testament to change and development through time. A young sapling cannot be an old oak, it must wait for the process of primary and secondary growth to occur over and over again. There are no shortcuts.
The new becomes the old, patterns yielding structure. Cycles of time leave universal fingerprints within these beings we simply call “trees.”
I grew up in a typical American home. Seasons were mostly disregarded. It was always time to produce, to grow, to change, to be more than I was yesterday. There were no seasons of rest, no dormancy. Love and attention were the carrot dangling off the stick of achievement. Being was ignored, doing celebrated.
Yet, I, like the tree, had my own inner cycles of growth through time. The experiences that fed me slowly became the “bark” that protected me. The cyclical inner “rings,” times of growth, fast and slow, became the inner world of my being.
With time, this process became my strength. The old parts of me turned into my protectors. New growth expanded me further and further into the world. Even now, I see farther for greater height of soul. My roots descend deeper into the world, bracing me against storms that come from the same place that feeds me.
There is no shortcut to this process. I cannot make myself wise; I can only live and become what I am meant to be, nourished and tested within my environment. I become what I become, fed by the same hands of grace that feed the trees outside my window.
I am a process, not a product. I am made whole by my pursuits, my strength developing over time as I simply am who I am. I need seasons of recovery, my growth is periodic.
If there is any goal to this existence, it is to become Love. I exist to sit presently with what is, accepting it all in an act of loving presence. Judging the world separates me from it. I grow as I am both crushed and fostered by this reality. My “bark” protects my growing strength. I cannot reject the world without also rejecting its nutrients. In doing so, I die. I can only collaborate if I wish to live another day.
And so I accept what is. I change what I can. I reflect silently to try to understand the difference. And, in time, my rings multiply, my bark thickens, and I grow in stature to provide help and homes to those who seek my energy and time.
This is being. This is love.
