Nature is a wonderful teacher, with so many abundant lessons to absorb. According to the ancient Jewish text The Talmud, “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers GROW, GROW.” When spending time in nature, you get to observe so much miraculous life sprouting up all around you. It takes your breath away.
Recent scientific studies have uncovered an entire natural ecosystem of complex, invisible behaviors and elaborate communication systems that rival high speed man-made fiber-optic networks. In his 2015 best-selling book The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben reveals that trees are far more alert, connected, sophisticated, and even more intelligent than we thought. The most astonishing thing about trees is how social they are. They care for each other, sometimes even going so far as to nourish the stump of a felled tree for centuries after it was cut down by feeding it sugars and other nutrients to keep it alive. Many scientists attribute this behavior to the fact that parent trees will often nurture their offspring from their root reservoirs during the first hundred years that the younger trees are maturing—providing totally new meaning to the expression, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
Trees can teach us how to grow and flourish if we model their behavior. We plant deep roots to ground ourselves with healthy behaviors and proper nutrition. And when we feed our curiosity to learn new things, it is as if we are reaching up towards the sky as we continue to grow and flourish. In this way, we can remember to focus on our roots as well as our branches in order to remain supple and flexible with changing seasons and weather.
People can learn from the noble trees to give these gifts to others. We fortify a person’s foundation when we help them feel confident and secure, grounded in love in order to feel lovable and to share love with others. We cultivate a person’s sense of expansion and growth by inspiring them to branch out so that they can reach for new experiences.
So perhaps The Talmud was right: Every blade of grass DOES have its very own guardian that bends over it and whispers GROW, GROW. And that whisperer can be you.
I’m sending you strength and love.
Soaringwords is the power to heal.
Lisa
