What has been shed

Our faces now primed a beginners tan, the leaves mercifully make their push to unfold, and suddenly the landscape takes its leave of all that has been familiar for the past six months. A pivot point has been reached, in myself, in the world around me, and now the heady preparation phase before all is sealed, fulfilled, and rejuvenated at the end of May. What tiny leaves who have somehow proved themselves unworthy in their short life are now being cast aside in the strengthening weather; they gather around my doorway, their headlong progress halted by the door mat, still vibrant green and tender.

After a few years of troubled denial, I'm now having to admit something about myself, now, because finally I feel alright about it. My own little seemingly innocent young leaves have blown away, new strength does not nourish them, I may go on with living. Ever again life has proven to be cyclical yet ever progressing upwards or downwards; an indescribable balance between vertical and horizontal, moving through the same dear seasons yet never in total repetition. A cask of wine: from soil comes a cluster of grapes, an arrangement of virtues and challenges which are pressed by karma and experiencing into some liquid. Choosing the right housing and context for this product makes all the difference, and the oaken cast of my limited understanding of life holds true for many seasons. Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring are the same, even the juice inside is essentially the same liquid that first entered, but it becomes always more complex, always changeable, until decanting, and vinegar or wine is the result.

I grateful for the release, grateful for the acceptance, and grateful for Summer, just over the horizon.