Like Leaves on The Grass....

One of the things I enjoy most about being outside, walking or gardening, is how my mind is free to spin and make connections.  This morning I had one of those "Aha!" moments.


What if human lives are like leaves on a tree?  Each leaf is born, new and fresh and perfect.

Over time, the leaves grow to maturity, making food for the tree as they convert sunlight to the sugars that the tree needs to grow.

Along the way, the leaves experience problems.  Drought shrivels them a bit around the edges.  Insects gnaw holes in their pristine surfaces.  Diseases may kill off part of a leaf - or may even kill off entire groups of leaves.  Stormy winds pull some leaves off before their time.  Hail shreds other leaves, especially those on the outer and upper levels of the tree's canopy.

Eventually most of the leaves are simply worn out.  It's the end of their life span.  The tree withdraws the life force from within them, they turn colors,...

...and they drop from where they've lived high up in the air, down onto the ground.

There they will join with a myriad of other dead leaves...

...and slowly decompose, turning into fertile soil that enriches the ground where the tree, of which they were once a living part, grows stronger each year.

No two leaves are ever exactly the same, yet all of them are more alike than different.  All the leaves on a single tree are part of the same living organism, even though they each seem separate from each other.  No leaf can - or should - live forever, yet the life of the tree goes on for a long time...and the life of the forest of trees goes on even longer.


This analogy soothes me.  It gives me a concrete understanding on which to pin philosophical concepts such as "we are all one" and "there is life after death," as well as biological concepts such as aging and the inevitability of death.  To every thing, there is a season....