I’m passing along a bit of earthy nature science that has spiritual applications (like most things).

The word marcescence refers to those persistent leaves that cling to a tree after all the other leaves have fallen. A tree in the fall will close off its veins that flow the sap, which causes the leaves to let go and become humus for the roots and forest floor. Marcescence happens mostly in juvenile trees, and all leaves dropping as the tree matures.

Do you see it?

We are covered with lessons of letting go, growing up, shifting and rising. And it is true. If we are not doing these things, we are dying. It is growth or death-by-stagnation, baby.

But have you been doing it? The work, as they say? It is a rough go of it, to let go and grow up. No matter our age. We can implement all of our mindfulness, all of our calm, all of our love, all of our grown-ass ways….and still be brought to our knees in pettiness, fear, ugly humanness.

But have no fear. It is merely marcescence. Even as we stand tall in our own storms some of our past clings. It clings tight. Our juvenile state may not just be a Chronos reference to our teen years, but the state of the particular issue or crisis we are facing.

Divorce, death, loss, financial hardship, family dynamics……whatever is tearing at your heart and ripping your calm to shreds. There surely must be a juvenile stage, where we stomp around, pout, blame all others….and as we work through those initial stages we hopefully will right ourselves with my two favorite questions for hard times:

How do I want to show up?
What do I want this story to say when it is all done?

With these two questions (and many others, but these are potent questions, to begin with) we move out of the juvenile stage of the crisis and into young adult stage and then on into a more mature stance. It is just a way of saying that we grow up through what we are facing. And even toward the more mature phase, we may still cling tightly to a particular complaint that is embedded deeply in our identity and we can’t let go. Those little leaves hang on as if there is still life. But they are dead. Let go.

Let go and apologize

Let go and forgive

Let go and realize you’re not the center anymore

Let go and turn your gaze to what awaits you

Let go and allow all that you have wept, learned, known, experienced compost your roots

And then, the little nubs of something new can emerge.

With you,

Amy