Dead Branches

Once you create something new it can not remain new.  Once birthed, it starts to grow.  Like children, it must move from one stage into another into another.  We can not halt or stop the process.  Living things must grow.  Even without our permission.  We can only guide.  Connect.

But we can not control it.

And sometimes a dream takes a turn for the worse.  It arrives stillborn.  Lifeless. Dead.  A dream, hope or vision we thought would bring life does not.  It does not bear fruit.  It does not become what we want it to become.  Eventually we must face the fact: it is not growing.  Not yet. And maybe not ever.

We must do with such ideas the only thing that can be done with them: burn them like dead wood.  That may sound devastating or harsh, but it is not.  For the potent energy bound in those dead branches, when burned by the fire, releases the very light and heat we need for the next idea to shine.   

The deader the branch the better the light.

But the fire is not ours to start.  It is not our domain.  We do not even get to strike the match.  We are not our own.  Our ideas are not our own either.  We are part of something much bigger.  And the fire that consumes our dead-wood offerings continues without us.

The fire is eternal. And the fire is beautiful.

That is the beauty and gift of the sacrifice.  We may think of it as our willingness to give something up - to lay down ourselves.  And that may be a piece of it.  But what are we laying down on the fire that does not go out? It is not our renewed life.  No, it is our old, dead life - the life that only burdens our new adventure.

That is why sacrifice is a gift.  “Dying” to ourselves is necessary.  It is not merely poetry.  It is a real and vital part of living.  Putting to death our old nature, and the system it sustains, is in fact the process of living.

We die to death before it makes us die.

We die as things all over nature die.  And through death we are brought to life.  Though we want to avoid death, it serves this very purpose.  Not only our bodily death, but the deaths of our great ideas.  The deaths of things we have created that never get their chance to live.   

Let them die.  Celebrate their death.  Recognize it.  Literally.  Something changes when we do, really, as we accept and even decide that life is not against us.  That death is part of the process.  Is natural.  Necessary.  Part of the story.  Native.  And yes, even able to bring the very healing we seek.

Suddenly death is neutralized.  Its “forces” are turned into strength.  Like a controlled forest burn, death sweeps through and burns away the dead.  Renewing.  Increasing vitality.  Seeding.  As the old is burned, it literally becomes the soil for the new.

Death.  Life.  Death.  Life.

Yes, we must suffer.  We must accept the fact that in a world of illusions we will be misunderstood.  We will not be celebrated.  Our attempts to heal will be met with opposition.  Even rejection.  But we must try them anyway.  The old must burn.   

And as we let go of our need to be significant, recognized, desired - a powerful thing starts to happen.  We begin to see the real Source is not us.  We are not the fire! 

We do not need to prove ourselves.  We are not limited to finding our worth or value in what we successfully produce.  Let it go of the pressure.  Accept your failures.  Shortcomings.  All of it.  Let go of the hero so you can find something much more significant: the saint. 

May God go with you on the journey.