The Awakening Land
Elizabeth Montgomery starred in a television series many years ago, called “The Awakening Land”, a story about pioneers who settled in Ohio. The first of the three part series was entitled, “The Trees”. She and her family left community, journeyed to the Ohio Valley in a Connestoga wagon, and settled on a parcel of land. It was all virgin forest, and though beautiful, was not open enough for life-affirming agriculture. She found it dark too, and was overjoyed when a small window was delivered by an arriving pioneer family.
During the second of the series, “The Fields”, many trees were felled around the cabin and seeds were planted. The heroine and her family worked hard to expand the fields, to harvest greater crops and to share with newcomers, who settled similarly. A community evolved, and in a few years a very open landscape of fertile land came to be.
The third of the series, “The Town” opens with our heroine ensconced in a fine home on a bluff overlooking the town below. By the end of this final segment she is overcome by the scarcity of trees, remembering how beautiful the forests were when she had first arrived, and she makes a decision to plant some seedlings. And so, the cycle continued.
Trees are like bookmarks in our lives, links to favorite memories, or stanchions of joyous experiences for us. They sometimes become symbols of destruction as well, when “natural disasters” occur. Like them we grow; we flourish; we are attacked by storms; we experience blight; we heal; or we become the rich, deciduous layer that spawns life. Within the cycle we continually have gifts to share, exhaling the oxygen of a “fertile” idea, a story, a poem, a dance, a sport technique, or a song. We root deep; we reach high; we breathe; we awaken.
Sarah sarah@powerupeight.com
Photo: Chequers Tree by Andrew Dunn, www.bing.com
