A few years back I went to Yellowstone National Park to celebrate a milestone birthday with my Mom. In general, my days are scheduled, and double scheduled meaning nearly every moment is accounted for. So the idea of taking a trip with a “tour” group and an itinerary was not exactly resonating with me.
But it was my Mom. And it was her birthday. And it was amazing. I haven’t been on many trips that involved a tour guide or a group. If I could ever get away for a “vacation” I would usually plop down on a beach or schedule something around a concert somewhere. A “no agenda” trip was always my kind of getaway.
In Wyoming though, I was actually going to learn something and stay active, no plopping down anywhere. We went to a dude ranch and rode horses. We went on a bike tour and rode around near the Grand Tetons. We saw geysers erupt at Old Faithful and water rafted down Snake River.
I have always been inspired to look at nature and draw parallels between the natural order of things, and my own life. I had a couple of a-ha moments during this trip, one specifically was about the thousands of pine trees that surrounded us.
Dave, our guide said something about the pines, while our small tour bus made it’s way through Yellowstone. He drew our attention to the specific pattern of the pine branches. The trees are tall and lean, and lose lower branches as they grow.
Paraphrasing “When the lower branches take more from the tree than they can contribute, they fall off and die. The tree won’t sustain parts of itself that need more nutrients than they contribute to the tree.”
That concept stuck with me. We have people in our lives, roles, jobs, habits, homes, vehicles, clothes that are all part of different seasons in our lives. But seasons are not meant to last. Change is inevitable.
The idea that the tree itself could let go of its own branches once they no longer served the greater life of the tree, was a reminder to me that people, roles, jobs, homes, etc. serve our lives in certain periods of time, but once they take more from the “whole” than they can provide back, they fade away.
It is natural, to let go of the parts of our lives that while perhaps once critically valuable, now take more from us than they contribute to our overall well being. When the demands of the old “branches” outweigh the benefits of its existence, we have to let them go. Otherwise the very tree (or life) itself, becomes weak, depleted, and vulnerable.
Are you holding onto any dried up branches from another season, that are keeping you from growing higher? Stronger? I certainly am. Let’s see if we can be like Yellowstone Pines and allow them to softly fall away so as to free our growth into new seasons.
