Spiritual Lessons From Nature Part XVI: Rooting Ourselves

A couple of weeks ago on Memorial Day, I took my kayak out for the first time this year on the river that flows just down the street from my house.

The day itself was a perfect New England spring day with blue skies and warm enough temperatures that the river water didn't freeze my feet and ankles as I waded the kayak into the deeper water to get in.

My mood, however, was a little off.

This American holiday, Memorial Day, has always been a little bit strange in my family because my maternal uncle and my grandfather (his father) died on that very same day.

They both died well before I was born, but just the same, the holiday has always been obscured with a haunting feeling that emerges at the end of every May when it comes around again on the calendar. 

I think this is in part because I watched my mother grieve for both her brother and father each year on this holiday, and also because they were both so very young when they died- my uncle was 19 years-old and my grandfather was 38.

Thinking about family and family ancestry always makes you think about the image of trees and particularly tree roots, which is why, on this day, I couldn't help but notice all of the roots of the trees along the river as I paddled by.

I contemplated the way in which the tree roots sustain and ground the tree, and yet along this river in spring, many of the roots were exposed and above the water level.

Without knowing the science of it, I wondered if this root exposure made any difference for the trees? Did it make them more vulnerable? 

Yet, I also couldn't help but notice, the trees looked perfectly healthy, stable and alive- so perhaps not?

I've never felt entirely "rooted" by my own family or family ancestry, and in many ways, I have actually intentionally "uprooted" myself in order to maintain my own wellness and well-being.

So I felt quite surprised about a week after this time on the river, when I was sitting in my living room on the ottoman with both my feet planted solidly on the floor, as both my 5 year-old and my 10 year-old pig-piled on my back, and the image of the tree with its deep roots floated up in my imagination.

And in that moment, as my children giggled and laughed while they tried to maintain their balance on top of each on my back, I had this physical sensation of an image of roots growing out of both my feet and then rooting themselves into the floor of my home.

The moment was quick, 30 seconds perhaps, and yet I can still close my eyes even as I write these words, and sense the profound physical and emotional connection that I felt as I rooted myself into something greater than just small but significant me.