There’s a tree on a riverbank of a small stream that speaks to me. A trail runs alongside the stream, but the main trail spurs off away from the creek. If I remember in time, I will veer off the trail to follow the stream so that I can see the tree again. There are two arresting aspects of the tree that call to me. I have written about the first, the tree’s large scar HERE. I’ve even converted that blog post into a poem that I use to close my presentations for Alzheimer’s caregivers.
The second defining characteristic of this tree is its root system. This is not a very big tree aboveground, but its visible root system is massive. Maybe that’s just because it is so visible. If it was all underground, as tree roots are, it would be just as massive, just unseen. But this tree’s roots are clinging to the bank, sprawling out laterally in both directions, and reaching into the stream itself. It’s as if the tree is holding onto the riverbank, clawing desperately to hang on. I wish I could see what this stream and tree looked like ten or fifty years ago. Has the creek been slowly eroding its bank, eating away at the soil that the tree had previously plunged its roots into?
It’s as if the tree is hanging onto its past—it’s prior security and depth and source of nourishment.
How like that tree we can be, desperately clinging to the shores of what we know. It’s our solid ground, our security and maybe even the source of prior nourishment. It’s what we know. So we claw and scrape to continue holding onto this place, this knowing.
But if we continue to cling to the past, we can’t move forward. Of course, a tree is not meant to move forward; it can only grow upwards, dependent on its roots for its place. But humans are meant to move forward.
When we let go of the banks of our knowing and allow the stream to carry us, we experience new vistas, new landscapes. And I don’t mean literally. Our emotional and spiritual landscapes can gain new insights if we loosen our grasp on what we thought we have always known. Falling into the same thought patterns gets us nowhere. There is comfort in familiar internal landscapes, and nostalgia feels nice. For a while. But unrelenting patterns of anxiety, melancholy, and self-doubt afford no new growth, no new way of being.
We cannot live in the past. We have to let go. We may not know where the current will take us, but we trust the Universe to carry us to where we are supposed to go. We must live now. The river of life will flow despite our efforts to hold onto the shore of our past knowing. The river might even eat away at the bank, forcing us into her flow.
We could scrabble and fight to get back to the shore we know. Or we can choose to relax, put our feet in front of us, and let the river move us forward. From the middle of the river, we have the vantage of seeing the shores as we are carried by.
There will be eddies and rocks we have to maneuver around, and there may come floodwaters that swamp us at times. So maybe it’s best if we build a boat. A boat made of sturdy, life-sustaining principles—honesty, vulnerability, kindness, integrity. Then we can more securely sail the river of life, letting it take us to our future.