west of the sun

it's this time of year. the trees need to be cut back. work crews are out there in the streets, removing twigs, bringing the trees back into shape while they are still bare.

so today i will have to do the same: cutting back the butterfly tree. which is growing leafs already. it feels strange, cutting back a tree. "It will become more beautiful by cutting," my mother explains. if the butterfly tree had a manual, it would be written in it, too: cut back to one metre in spring. this will create strong growth and lush flowers, and keep the tree from scattering its energy into too many directions.

i wonder if this goes for humans, too. that our trials and errors in life are a parallel to the cutting back of twigs. to let us grow stronger. and develop unique flowers.

strange, today i even see trees in the wood of the living room floor. so easy sometimes to forget where things are coming from. so difficult to reach out to the core of being, to reach this place south of the border, west of the sun.