And We Grow

We went for a hike with friends a couple of weekends ago and came upon a magnificent tree. It stood there, stoically stretching its branches up to the sky, laughing at us as we traced the outline of its belly button. 

At first, I thought that the tree had been hollowed out, shaped like that by man, but it soon became apparent that the tree had actually grown this way. Old decayed wood had fallen away exposing the delicate nature where the sun and wind had passed, but overall, the trunk was true and solid.

I stood amazed at the determination of this old soul. How it must have struggled to reconnect its base and find the will to grow tall and strong even though something had split it centuries before. Its desire to be one, to be whole, was obvious...

Perhaps I'm waxing too poetical about this tree. Perhaps it was nothing more than mere chance that it is still standing and that it really didn't fight its way back to wholeness. Perhaps over time, bugs and bees had nibbled their own right of passage through it and that's all. All sorts of things may have troubled this tree and created this space that shouldn't be.

But I don't care. 

To me, this tree is still strong, it's still one. There it stands, giving hope to those branches who are unfazed by whomever or whatever tried to take it all down. They are there still, reaching towards infinity.