The Invitation

In these last few weeks, I can't help but return to the same image again and again. In it, sometimes the sun is shining bright so I have to squint, and other times the sky is a palette of greys, blending with the frozen lake. No matter what, there's the tree. Bare of leaves except at the tippy top. There, on the small branch coming from the larger one, coming from the trunk, there's a leaf. One leaf, just hanging there.

When I first saw this, I sat, puzzled and feeling contemplative with my cup of Earl Grey in hand.

Then I heard, so clearly from somewhere inside of me or maybe whispered from the tree: 
"you weren't created for this."

But what, exactly, is this? Does this refer to the place I'm at right now? Or the place I'm preparing to go? Or maybe it's more of a spiritual state I'm in? Or a way of operating? Is it the friends I have or maybe the ones who have left me? 

There's no answer. So, I continue returning to this image and continue asking this question.

I wrote a poem about the leaf (what a tree-hugging Romantic, I know...bear with me). And as I re-read it, I realize that maybe it's addressed more to myself and to you than to a leaf. 

The Invitation 

When the southern winds move northerly, there comes the invitation you were created for, though maybe you didn't know it until the winds themself sung:

"Come learn the dance which begins

with letting go of what you know

until something greater can grow.

But first you must leave.

It's in your name, you see.

Come,"

she laughs and dances on.

But you stay, somewhere between being a faithful companion and a stubborn coward, and ask questions on the details of matters you can't yet comprehend.

So you see seasons you were never prepared for, full of joys and tears and trials just as life always is. And when you finally pause you hear, again, the never-ending chorus of the winds:

come, let go of what you know, and join in the journey.