After what felt like a long wait, bright crisp frosty mornings are back again!
The trees are looking bare, the frost having brought to the ground the last of the leaves so as the trees can conserve energy over winter as they enter a dormant phase, hunkering down until they can sense the warmth of spring.
On this magnolia tree the last few leaves stubbornly refuse to fall to the ground, but already, the new leaves have been prepared and are curled up tightly in their fury coverings to keep them safe from the frost while they wait for more favourable conditions, longer stretches of daylight and milder temperatures, when they can emerge and photosynthesise producing food for the tree.
Nature, with its always changing seasons, constantly reminds us that beauty, and indeed life itself is always fleeting. Nothing pure, precious, or beautiful—can last forever.
If we can accept the temporary nature of all things, then perhaps we can too better appreciate those fleeting precious golden moments of which memories are made, transient as they are.
Like this tree, it is often tempting to want to cling on to that which once fed and nurtured us, but just as we can’t stay young forever, we need to learn to let the old fall away, so as new growth can blossom. We might feel a bit exposed for a while, but just as God prepares the rest of creation for what is ahead, so will God also be already be preparing us for the next season of our lives.
Liz
Nothing Gold Can Stay
- By Robert Frost
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
