I was out walking and the trees offered a powerful reminder. They showed me so clearly how it's not that the old leaves fall and THEN eventually new ones grow in their place. No! It's the emergence of the new leaves that pushes the old ones from their branches. Even in winter, when the branches are bare, the buds of the coming season are swelling with life...
In these times when the old social structures of oppression and inequity are decaying -- but still trying to hold on -- it is the new ways of being that we are birthing together that will force empire's inevitable demise. We must not wait until the old ways are gone to dream and build and inhabit the new ones! Live them now, as so many are doing...There is great power in the new life that is even now pushing forward!
And honoring, with gratitude and humility, that so many of the "new ways" are a return to the wisdom of the Original Peoples of this planet -- how to be in community with one another, with earth and cosmos, with ancestors and coming generations.
This same principle of inhabiting the new ways of being is true for our individual lives as well. In this Solstice-time, breathe into (and dream into!) who you are called to BE and the life you want to create... plant those seeds of sacred intention and release with the composting leaves what no longer serves.
(written winter solstice 2020 / photo by liza rankow)