Cutting Back a Plant

Today I asked my land here in Hawaii for a lesson for me. 

Here is “the just” of what the land pointed out to me:

We are much like plants as we live and grow in our lives.  As most everyone knows, there are times when it is good to cut a plant back.  At these times, the plant has grown too far out in every direction.  It may be misshapen; having its creative energy dispersed in unbalanced ways.   Perhaps, like a person, it has put all its “eggs in one basket.” 

Have you seen those trees; misshapen with one huge branch bending the plant in that direction? 

I suspect that was me until recently.  

There is a new plant that I put in the ground next to my tiny house here in Hawaii.  It was tall with many leaves on the top.  However, it was imbalanced.  It was too top heavy.  It was going to have trouble starting anew in this new home with all this old growth on top.  My gardening friend suggested that I cut the top off.  

“What,” I said, “cut the pretty top off?  Then it will only be a stick in the ground!” 

“Yes,” she said, “but it will grow back.  It will be easier for it to take root if it does not have all its energy going to the top.”

That made so much sense.

So I cut it back.

Then, it was just a stick in the ground. 

I walked by it day after day and it looked dead and forlorn.  It had no leaves.  What is this stick in the ground?  Who put it there?  What will it become?  Will it grow again?

I’ve been watching it for signs of new growth.  Almost feeling like it and me are bonded in this moment.   I too, have let go of a branch of myself that I grew for so long.  I too have cut off all the growth that I had accumulated in the last six years.   

Well, I do exaggerate slightly.   Because, you may have already noted, that the core of the plant, the trunk is still there.  If there wasn’t any trunk, there would be no plant.  This plant has been sunk into a new soil.  Any branch the plant grows next to my house is from the nutrients of my land not the land it was previously living on.

I noticed the other day, that It is growing again.  I see small shoots on several sides coming out.  The truth is, that even when it looked possibly dead and forlorn, it was hard at work under the soil taking root so it could grow anew. 

Like this plant, there is a vulnerability in starting anew.  If the plant is not strong enough, it may not be able to heal and grow anew.  

I feel like that plant right now.  I’ve cut off all my limbs, my job, my activities, my friend groups, and my community; all that I had created in California, to move to Hawaii.  But like the plant, I still have myself, my partner and roots that still branch out over the miles to connect to friends near and far.   

Why do this? 

Why let go and walk away?

What new will grow? 

I don’t know.  

Singularly terrifying and exciting.  

All I know for sure is that it will grow as a more accurate reflection of the me that is present now.