Hope Blooms

in #hope5 years ago

Darkness has risen in the world.

Maybe it was always present. Most likely, you have some sense of what I'm talking about. That's good, because I'm not going to explain it. It is likely we would diverge on the specifics, and peering into the abyss is not the purpose of this piece.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche

I'm Writing About Hope.

This is the vision that greeted me as I entered the dojo this morning. The tree is two years old, and blooming in earnest for the first time.

This is not a situation where I saw some new spring flowers, and just knew that everything was gonna be all right.

These flowers grew out of a tragedy.

These flowers almost never existed.

These flowers are the result of hard work and persistence at building something of value.

The work was begun by my teacher and carried forward by his students, including myself. The tragedy that nearly took down the school we had built was Sensei's untimely passing, an event for which we had not prepared. I wrote about this in detail last year, if you’re curious:

On Loss, And Growth - Part 1
On Loss, And Growth - Part 2

Per the wishes of Sensei and his family, his ashes were distributed in the places that he loved best. A part of his mortal remains were planted beneath that tree, two years ago.

Though every living thing has a limited plane of existence, it became very important to me that the little tree survive.

It nearly didn't.

Two months after planting, when the tiny tree had seemed to be getting established, we had a significant drought. The leaves of the tree withered. I brought in mulch and watered deeply to save the little tree. The leaves fell. Yet I could scratch the bark and find green underneath, so I held onto hope. A day came when a scratch on the outer bark revealed only brown. By all appearances, the tree was dead. I kept watering.

May 2017, 2 months after the near-death experience

As the upper two-thirds of the injured tree began to shrivel, it became clear that the bottom one-third still had life. The bark was taut, the buds of new growth swelled, and all at once the tree was growing again. We had entered the rainy season. In no time, the tree that grown so tall and lush that I worried how it would fare in the high winds of hurricane season.

September 2017, trimmed back and reinforced for hurricane Irma

Last year, the brave little tree put out a single cluster of blooms. It handled the seasonal droughts and high winds without much special attention, just additional mulch and a pruning in August. As the tree recovered from its injury, so did the dojo - though it seems the tree has been quicker to establish itself.

So Today, Hope Has Bloomed.

Yesterday I wrote about the importance of taking meaningful action to improve the situation for yourself, your family, and your community. Sensei's tree shows me why. The flowers that gave me a breath of hope today were planted and nurtured into existence over a period of two years.

What will the actions you take today become, two years from now?

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This post definitely made my day... A great message for the future..

I also had a sensei.. the first one I really though had it, pass away quite suddenly and unexpectedly.

Thank you!
Sorry to hear that about your Sensei. It really made me value the teaching, realizing that the years of study a person like that holds is not so easily passed on. It takes years of study for their students to begin to get it. Those of us who had been there a decade or more had a torch to bear, if we could manage it.

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Really enjoyed this post! Also the one from yesterday! You must have felt almost proud seeing it blossom like that! Well done! Darkness has risen sure, but I can see the light in you from miles away!!

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Aww, thanks. I do love seeing the tree in bloom. It still has more buds swelling, so I'll look to take another photo in a couple days.

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Like they say the elders planted trees that they will not get to use its shades!
Good thought provoking write up.
Visited this post because you pimped it using @pifc pimp your post #22

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