The Wisdom of Ellen

She was here before the neighborhood was, wisdom planted in the midtown neighborhood in the form of a silver maple. She towers over all the rest of the neighborhood trees, her limbs as large as small trees themselves. I asked her her name when I bought the house, and she told me she’s called Ellen. To me and many of my clients, she’s the most amazing healer, bringing us peace and soothing pain.

On Thursday in the middle of Holy Week, an ice storm coated the area in glass. I was upstairs when I heard the crack. I thought it was lightning. My neighbor texted me to say she heard it too and thought it came from my backyard.

When I looked out my upstairs window, I saw one of Ellen’s large limbs lying on the ground, filling my backyard. My heart sank. I wanted to run outside and lay myself across her broken branches and weep. But the earth herself was weeping for me. Rain and ice fell around her, coating her fallen but still budding branches.

The broken limb had turned hollow from within, home to squirrels and baby raccoons. The weight of the ice had revealed the part of her that was already dead. It was its time. It was time for that part of her to come down.

I wept as I told her story to the tree guy who came to take her broken limbs away. He hugged me and said, “A lot of people don’t understand trees, but I get it.”

I stood in the yard today as the tree folks trimmed back Ellen's remaining damaged branches, thinking about what that ice had revealed. What looked strong from the outside had already been hollowing quietly from within. Life was still moving through her. Buds were still forming. She was still so beautiful, but a part of her had already completed its cycle.

And all around me, life seemed to be telling the same story. In different ways, the same truth is appearing. Some things break suddenly. Others have been breaking quietly for a while before we are willing to see it. Some are personal… and some are happening in the collective...

And sometimes there’s an ice storm that shows us what is alive and what is dying. What can continue forward, and what is ready to be released. It’s all part of love. Surrendering. Allowing. The quiet wisdom of letting go when something has reached the end of its season...and loving anyway.