Growth...new leaves...new buds.
Anyway, I remember wishing there was a more convenient place to pull over near this vineyard to take a picture. For some reason, the scene struck me--lush green, but obviously on their way out for the season.
In late November, I drove by again and the leaves were all brown and looked singed, scorched, dry, frail as the season ended. This struck me, too. So green and fresh weeks before and now fading.
Then winter hit. There were no leaves, just stark, anorexic looking branches. No color. No light around them. Just sticks. I kept thinking to myself that I should have taken pictures during each season so I could show the progression, the growth, the change and preserve it for myself. Every time I drove by, I was listening to music and kept thinking it was representative of some life metaphor for me. There were even a few days when a light dusting of snow covered the branches completely out of sight, as if trying to completely choke out any fraction of greenery and hope from those limp vines.
Well, now it is spring. And I drove past it the other day and realized all is green and there is light and hope once again. So I pulled precariously into a little dirt driveway. "Hiked" the equivalent of a few blocks, sneaked onto the grass in my heels and snapped a few pictures.
Each time I drove by and consciously noticed these branches was a moment of enlightenment. And when I say enlightenment, don't freak out and think I'm getting all Eastern on you. Well, actually I am. But don't assume an Eastern perspective negates my salvation (like my divorce obviously did for some of you...anyway *cough *cough moving on). I'm saying awareness. That's what I mean. I am not naturally a person that is connected to animals or nature. I like working out in the gym. I like running at a high school track. I've never been one that has to get out of whatever area I'm in to walk or garden or connect at all with nature or creation.
In recent months, without noticing and while in the middle of other internal struggles, I've noticed a slight pull...slight but steady as the tide...toward flowers, trees, the forest...nature in general. I've found myself out running and suddenly paused to watch two twitterpated birds flirt in front of me, spy on a momma bird feigning injury to draw me away from stepping on her nest of eggs. I've never been like that. I've never noticed things like that. I'm too hasty by nature. So noticing that I noticed the seasons of this vineyard branch showed me some major internal growth.
Seasons change. People grow. Times ebb and flow. It's important to stop fighting those seasons. Vineyard branches don't fight them. They have to go through all four seasons in order to be harvested properly and be used to make flasks of expensive, good wine. It's part of the journey. To notice something so serene and peaceful and restful in nature reminded me to simply accept, to simply be rather than try to maintain control or somehow keep some sort of plan from slipping between my fingers like grains of sand. It's time to stop pushing and planning and forcing things to happen in my life. It's time to just be--to accept the natural pruning that fall forces on my branches, to cover up and cuddle up during the long winter as growth happens beneath the surface away from the world's ever present eye, to painfully allow buds to form on my skin in spring as proof of that health and growth from the prior two seasons, and to bloom fully--not holding anything back in any capacity--in a rich, lush summer.
Cheers and happy spring, Friends.
This year I started taking pictures of the vineyards at my work every month. The changes that happens in just days is amazing. You've made me want to see those vines that you're talking about!
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