Pruning plants, pruning life
There’s a family of black cockatoos living in the bush across from my house.
Every morning as I walk to the water I see them. Sometimes 3 or 4 eating the buds of banksia. Sometimes up to 10 of them flying over the tree tops. When I approach they sound a warning, a deep prehistoric call.
I like to imagine they’re getting used to me. Sometimes they stay long enough for me to get really close. I stand on the sand, hardly breathing, entranced by the flash of yellow underneath their black wings.
Every day the sweeping beach has a different story to tell. In the morning there’s often a covering of cloud. I often feel the same when I first wake up, like a cloud is covering my heart. I only have to trust, to sit and watch the tendrils of light piercing the pre-dawn to know that no cloud is permanent. It comforts me to know the sun will always rise. Or the earth will always spin, whatever way you want to look at it.
The early light comes in from the side so every silvery gum takes on a light of its own. Silver goddesses against the pale sky. The best light show in town.
Today as I write the rain pours down. The road floods and my heart overflows. I run outside and dance. This rain is life. It's the blood that runs through my veins.
It's getting to that time where we start to reflect on the year. Personally, I've never felt so free. Thank you 2020. Thank you for teaching me how to be strong. Thank you for illuminating my shadows. Thank you for teaching me boundaries can be held with softness, not force. Thank you for reminding me what is important. Thank you for showing me how to prune.
2020 has seen me fall madly in love with plant-life. I now have a house and balcony alive with plants. There's not much room for anything else, and it's just the way I like it! Lime trees, maples, kangaroo paw, fiddle leafs, sprawling maiden hair ferns and towering banana leafs. I tend to them every day, singing to them and spraying them. It's the first time I've really looked after another being.
I now understand the importance of pruning. At first I thought 'I can't cut off those leaves, the plant will suffer', but now I realise that it's a necessary process for the plants energy to be directed into new growth. Life is just like this! So every day as I prune my plants, I ask myself, what can I prune from my life to send my energy into new growth.