Life + Culture

This picture is from just a few weeks ago, and oh how things have changed! Now, most of the leaves are gone from the trees. A few leaves are still hanging on though.

A few months ago, I read an amazing book called Mirrors in the Earth, by Asia Suler. In that book, I learned that there is a word for this phenomenon called marcescence. What a beautiful sounding word!

As someone with many plants at home and who is always observing plants and trees in nature, I have often seen those few leaves, hanging on despite strong winds and wondered how they were still there. As I learned from the book and what I’ve seen in life, nature can be a funny thing.

Yes, sometimes comedic, but sometimes miraculous. Things that seem like they shouldn’t be, often are and continue to be. They persist and resist. Nature has the ability to heal itself. Not that all is well with Mother Earth.

As someone who often experiences eco-anxiety, because of climate change, I felt a great deal of relief and reassurance from reading her book. It’s the kind of book that I plan on reading again. Initially I borrowed it from the library, but I may buy it, so that I can refer to it over time.

Also, so that I can help support the author. She lives in North Carolina and her town suffered devastating losses after flooding from Hurricane Helene. For the past several years, I’ve purchased flower essences from her wonderful apothecary. Now it’s destroyed and under mud. It’s hard to comprehend this destruction.

But destruction also signifies birth. Every ending is another beginning. Sometimes “darkness is that of the womb and not the tomb,” as stated by Valarie Kaur. Some plants need the destruction of fire to flourish. Isn’t that amazing? When I first learned this many years ago, I was stunned.

Fires and floods have battered humanity since the beginning. But we’re still here. There are seasons for everything. A quote from Mirrors in the Earth, adds an additional perspective.

“Just like the hemlock perched between two boulders, we came into this world knowing how to live between a rock and a hard place, to straddle this gap between what is dying and what is being born. Open yourself to the bridge that you are, and we can all cross from one side of this torrent to another. This is not the end; it is the beginning. Who you are is the gift you were meant to bring to this Earth, and your presence here is exactly what is needed for this great rebirth.”

As we approach the second term of a presidency that so many of us do not want, it gives me some comfort to think that we are the people who are needed for this time.