the story the leaves tell

I stood on the bridge at Hinckley Park on the northeast side of the southern most pond. I watched over the pond as leaves floated down from above to their rest on the water. As the leaves fell they each told their own origin story, reaching back to the buds that they were in the springtime. They told the story of growth through the summer, now of fall, and of the promise of eventual regeneration.

There is wisdom in the story the leaves tell. They pull away from the trees that are rooted at the edge of the water. The wind lifts the leaves high with a shove up and out above the middle of the pond where they fall, as if from nowhere, coming down from an open sky, to participate in the grit and glory of the spiral of existence.

Each leaf — every single leaf that you encounter as you stroll through this day — once waved and tilted and twirled and danced its way from above to the earth where it takes its place among the grounding elements of rebirth.

In your life, and in mine, when we fall may we do so with such grace. When we fall may we do so with confidence that the earth that receives us is an earth that pines to usher us in the direction of renewal.