10/23/2024
In the spirit of deepening our connection with nature, I’m going to share a weekly “Foliage Focus” and who better to start with than the superstars of the season: Maple Leaves!
Representing strength across many cultures, these trees were often planted near the front door of homes for protection. You probably have a favorite in your own neighborhood whose magnificent crown of red and yellow carotenoids are being revealed as the season changes and the chlorophyll dissipates.
For me, the mighty maple symbolizes a more quiet type of resilience. I am reminded of an Indigenous story, retold in Robin Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass.
To summarize it: The Creator, having come to visit the First Nations People, was dismayed to find them not tending to their gardens but lying under the tapped maple trees, drinking syrup. Knowing that the people had grown lazy and ungrateful for the gift of maple, the Creator put water into the trees, making it so 40 gallons of sap would need to be processed just to make one of the once freely flowing, sweet syrup.
This lesson drifts back in like the maple leaves that tap my shoulder just as I am feeling frustrated that I don’t have a studio space, to remind me that it is good to work hard.
It is good to be outside to receive natures messages.
It is good to want for things, and perhaps that is what will make it all much sweeter in the end.
Thanks for reading! if you made it to the end, let me know what foliage you’re interested in learning more about next.
🍁Ry
