Sugar Maple

Contentment

I love walking in the woods and being with the Spirits of the plants and trees. Here is where I find my center and my balance. Here is where I find my sense of peace and belonging, where I am touching home. Here I can get lost in what is.

We had giant Sugar Maple trees in front of my home growing up. They had bright green leaves and beautiful shade in the summer, yellow and orange and sometimes (my favorite) red leaves for us kids to jump in during the fall, gorgeous outlines of limbs in the stark winter and in the spring, dangling clusters of yellow-green flowers bringing us hope for life to return.

In the woods near my home, I have found a ‘guardian’ Sugar Maple that has become part of my journey throughout my adult life. I visit with this tree …in all seasons. I sit with it. I pray with it. I tell it my troubles. I leave it offerings of chocolate and stories and hugs and t time spent. It has become a dear friend. And I am always welcomed under its canopy. It is massive, tall and wide and mature and bright green and lush and enchanting. Its limbs reach outward and upward. Searching for joy in the sunlight. Breathing in the air I breathe out. And happy to be part of life. Its jagged leaves are shaped like hands. Its seeds have wings. Nature is magical!

I feel safe under its canopy. I feel safe in the silence it offers. In the stillness my restless nature craves. Its roots reach down deep into me and its branches help me soar into new perspectives. It stretches me into new dimensions of myself. My hands touch its bark and I am reminded of the rough, craggy way I sometimes move through my life. And how this tree offers me freedom in the safety of its arms. Sweetness in its lifeblood. Its energy just being present with me, surrounding me. In the rhythm of our life force. Teaching me, showing me, asking me to follow.

Sugar Maple is a gateway into other dimensions in this middle world, the world we are alive in. Mystical fairies sing and dance around it late into the night. It offers us space to enjoy each moment, space to play. It reminds us of the beautiful rhythm life offers us all. It helps us be more flexible with life’s changes. Being present in the sweetness of our lives.

Sugar Maple is medicine for safety, stillness, silence, growth, lushness of life and kinship. For looking within for authentic wisdom and genuine, lasting comfort. For seeing who we truly are, the quality and depth of our core, our lifeblood.