Last Fall, we cut down a struggling crabapple tree.
[It allowed me to acquire a new tool … a really cool battery powered chain saw!]
This Spring we noticed some vibrant, shiny, new red-leafed sprouts coming out of the ground in odd places around the extended perimeter of what had been the crabapple tree. They were actually beautiful … except that they interfered with the gardener’s plans and plantings in the reclaimed space under the tree.
We soon discovered that simply pulling the sprouts out of the ground didn’t work; they were really resistant to being dislodged and kept reappearing. Digging them out revealed their true underpinnings as outgrowths from the residual crabapple tree roots – even tiny ones.
But they were, nonetheless, attractive and I wanted to see if they could be separately grown and eventually replanted in a more desirable area. Alas, they didn’t fare very well when dislodged.
I couldn’t help thinking … life is like that!
We draw incredible support from our roots. You can’t see it happening above ground. But, while one can appear to be flourishing independently, it’s the connections to life-source infrastructure lurking below the surface that largely supports our wellbeing. Cut those connections, and the result can be disastrous.
A guy’s heart goes into overdrive palpitations when a knockout young beauty drives by in a shiny new convertible … never mind the fact that her father or significant other is picking up the tab for all the hardware and softwear associated with the glitz and glamour.
And the infrastructure needs infrastructure: Roots need soil and water. But note the creativity, determination and persistence – against all odds – of some accidental tourists that appear in totally unlikely places and harsh circumstances:
Due to the laws of nature, one can’t grow a giant redwood tree from crabapple roots. But humans are different: We can actually choose the root systems that will support our future development and wellbeing!
This we need to do with some care. Nefarious undergrowth is forever lurking beneath the sod, cloaked in either glitz and glamour or pandering amusement, to expand domains of influence.
Roots benefit from the association. The most highly evolved blueprint is a symbiotic, two-way street rather than a parasitic, unidirectional association. The emerging sprouts gather and feed filtered raw material from air and sunlight to the roots and receive and process filtered raw material from the soil in return, supporting mutual growth and development.
Finally, although ones roots of origin remain an indelible association, the world and all its players are forever moving on.
“Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
Dorothy
[L. Frank Baum]
Wizard of Oz
“You’re not in Allentown anymore”
[‘Allentown can’t give you what you need to truly become Peggy Sawyer’]
[‘Allentown can only give you Allentown.’]
Show Producer to an emerging stage star
in 42nd Street
“You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood … back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.”
George Webber in Thomas Wolfe’s acclaimed novel
You Can’t Go Home Again
Harper and Brow, 1940, 743 pp.
Our sustainable survival and ultimate wellbeing depend on mutually beneficial and maturationally benefactual associations. Cultivate, support, learn from and advance those “rootable” associations most closely aligned with your core values and chosen Destiny. Quartermaster
