The messiness of magnificence

I spent half an hour this morning sweeping acorns off our deck and patio. Just like I did yesterday. And the day before that, and so on. Oak trees are messy and we have two in our small yard. In the fall, they drop (more like, they throw!) acorns. After that, they will drop their leaves, and it seems like there are hundreds of thousands. Could there be a million, I've wondered?

Winter brings hunks of bark and small dead branches in a strong wind. With the spring I find myself sweeping up the puffy catkins as the tree begins to leaf out. And the pollen from them can hardly be swept--it has to be washed off! Eventually, the mess of three seasons gives way and we are blessed with wonderful shade on the back of the house and a magnificently beautiful tree protecting us. Or, I suppose, falling on us if the winds are strong enough but that hasn't happened, so far.

Across the street, another oak lived in the same messy, magnificent, cyclic manner. It must have been 80 feet tall. Bombing the street with acorns, dropping leaves in unimaginable numbers, coating everything with pollen and, eventually, providing soothing, welcome shade with its broad canopy to the entire neighborhood, including our house where its shadow blessedly prevented the afternoon sun from blazing on the front of our home. New neighbors moved in with their brand new BMW which they parked in the driveway, like most of us in our neighborhood. In spite of placing a customized contoured cover on it, or making room in their garage, they just couldn't reconcile the beauty and value of the tree with the mess it made, and so they cut it down. And then they moved.

As I swept up acorns, I marveled at the cycles of this magnificent tree. And I thought of the cycles of a life, even my own or yours. We all go through cycles and sometimes it's messy. And you never know when your existence will be cut short. Still, each time we emerge from a season of some sort of growth, we might also experience a messiness. Or we might be settling into a period of stasis, of calm, of expressing our true nature. Our cycles may be less regular, and I hope you spend more time in the calmer ones, but they are just as real and every part of your life is essential for your full manifestation.

Learn to live with the messiness of your own magnificence.