Tag Archives: Letting Go

Cherry Tree Surrender

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Cherry tree with multiple yellow leaves with brown spots.

I planted this Lapins Cherry seven years ago, and did all kinds of care for it over the years. Holistic sprays, pruning, copper spray this spring. But we only had one cherry ever to eat from it, and each year it continues to have problems. Each time, I looked up what to do, and tried all sorts of things. It seems to be a fungal disease. The latest advice I read was to pick off all the diseased leaves from the branches and the ground. I seem to remember trying that last year. But you can see that would be an enormous amount of work, and maybe it wouldn’t even fix the problem. We had very few blossoms, and saw very few green cherries, maybe two or three.

close up of yellow cherry leaves with brown spots

So today I made the sad decision to give up. Some things in the garden seem to do well, even on their own. The raspberries just started ripening. The chives are perennially yummy. Even the peach tree has given us a harvest some years. Today I ate a mulberry from our mulberry tree! The third principle of Permaculture Design is “Obtain a Yield.” But this tree has never given a yield, no matter how much time and energy I put into it. I probably hung on too long, and tried too hard over the years. I don’t tend to give up easily. Sadly, this also means giving up on the other cherry, with similar problems. While the Lapins can be self-fertile, the Black Tartarian needs another cherry for fertilization. It too has issues, though I don’t see it as often because it sits behind the Lapins when I look out my window. One more thing I feel sad about is that the birds love to perch in the tree on their way to the bird feeder or bird bath.

Because the diseases are fungal, we won’t want to compost the leaves or branches. So my current “plan” is to prune off smaller branches one by one and bag them to go out in the trash. It takes quite a bit of energy in any case, so I will work on it bit by bit over the summer. I started today.

cherry leaves and branches in trash bag

So this post isn’t like the many websites that offer suggestions for saving dying cherry trees. This is about letting go. This is about accepting failure. This is about sadness and grief, and recognizing our limitations. This is about surrender to the larger forces in the natural world that determine which plants thrive in which places, and which plants cannot. This is about humility in our relationship to the earth community.

I am reminded of a song that meant a lot to me when I was wrestling with chronic illness and the decision to retire from work. Colbie Caillat, Try. In the lyrics is this constant refrain, “You don’t have to try so hard, you don’t have to bend until you break…” The song is mostly about trying to get other people to like you, but it spoke to me about trying so hard to keep up with work that I loved, when I truly did not have the energy for anything like full-time work anymore. It was okay to let go. I was lucky. I had reached the age of 65 where I could access Medicare and Social Security. I feel for all of my fellow chronic illness buddies who have had much harder survival journeys. We live in such a cruel society that offers so little support for people with illness. None of us should have to try so hard, to bend until we break.

Letting Go

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9 file boxes of white and brown, marked with Myke Johnson, numbered, with years and places, all lined up in a row

Today, S— came to pick up these nine boxes, to take to the LGBTQ archives at our local university. It feels like a pretty big deal. It involved six winters of going through old boxes that I had carried around for years–some for 50 years. I had to sort them paper by paper, and it became a look back into all the years of my life until now. I shredded and recycled and even composted much more paper than I kept. Perhaps I could have winnowed even more, if I went back through and sorted it all again, but I was ready to be done. (And I think that is one of the roles of an archivist anyway.) S— was so kind, and thanked me for adding to their collection. I felt good about entrusting her with these boxes. (Soon I will also transfer many years of digital files. But those are funny–you can give them and still keep them.)

At our retired ministers’ meeting this week, we reflected on poems, and especially the one by Mary Oliver that ends:

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

“In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver, from American Primitive. © Back Bay Books, 1983.

Letting go of these boxes, in a deeper sense, is a way of facing my own mortality. I notice that I am not completely letting go of these boxes, but giving them into someone’s care. I am hoping that I don’t disappear. Letting go of the boxes into an archive is not letting go of the self, really. On the contrary, it is saying: my life has had meaning and significance. And in the context of our times, it is saying, this lesbian life has meaning and significance–this lesbian life of activism, of writing, of spirituality, of ministry, has significance. Didn’t I learn that from Joan Nestle and the Lesbian Herstory Archives in New York? We must keep our own history/herstory. Not let it get lost. Especially now.

Sometimes, it feels like too much–too many pieces of paper, too many words, too many actions–will something essential get lost in the overabundance of words? But that is who I have been–always a pondering soul, a writing soul, a many-worded soul. I also notice that I am revealing so much of myself in this gift to the archives. Like writing, though, it is one step removed. So my shyness barely peaks out as I reflect on it. And I didn’t gift everything. For example, I decided not to send over my journals from 1983 on–(earlier ones are intermingled in the boxes.) I want those journals to go to the archives after I die. But the journals reveal not only my life but the lives of those who are close to me, and it feels much more intimate than the other papers. Very much part of my lesbian life, but for later revelation.

I think how, ultimately, in death, we let go in a much deeper way. I will let go of my small life into the larger Life, the larger Consciousness. I have always hoped, and felt it too, that Someone sees my life, that Someone sees all. I believe that I would be known and held in meaning and significance and love, whether I had written any words at all. All of us are.

There are things we cannot control

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Green shoots emerging in brown leaves and old stems
Going through old files, I found this reflection poem from 2014. It feels even more fitting for today, especially living as I do in the "realm" of chronic illness. I cannot control how much energy I will have each day, and rarely can I take action that might have an influence in the world outside our home. But this morning I was reminded that I can still choose to love in all of my hours, and be grateful.

There are things we cannot control.
It is a long list.  The weather, the seasons, 
the coming of day and night.
Another person's joy and sorrow, or love and grief.
We cannot control anything 
	about another person, most of the time.
The things we cannot control 
       are more numerous than the things we can.
The economy.  The price of milk.  
The coming of storms or the blooming 
       of lady slippers.
The return of the hummingbirds,
       or the death of poets.
If you are like me, you sometimes imagine 
you have more power than you really have.  
You try to control what you can, 
and even what you cannot.  You worry.
You want your children to be happy and fulfilled.
You want your parents to be healthy and content.
You want your partner to be a good match, and loving.
You may want the members of your community
	to be enthusiastic and generous,
and your staff to be talented and never to move away.
Big things or small things, no matter.
There are long lists of things we cannot control.
We want for all children to be safe, and girls who are lost to come home again.
We want angry young men to work out at the gym 
        and never to buy large amounts of guns and ammunition. 
We want politicians to be dedicated to the common good,
        and news media to the truth.
We cannot control anything about another person,
        most of the time.
We cannot control another person's joy and sorrow, loss and grief.
We cannot control the ways that joy and sorrow come into our own life.

But there are a few things we can control.
We can choose the values we want to follow in our own lives.
We can choose to speak up and act 
	in ways that share our values with the world.
We can choose to greet a stranger
	and listen to a friend.
We can choose kindness. No matter what.
We can choose to love.
	(and love ourselves too)
May you find the places of choice in your life, 
      and be at peace about all that is out of our control.

Letting Go

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Flag iris leaves in the pond changing color, and reflected

The many-colored transformations of autumn plants remind me of the beauty in the spiritual practice of letting go. As the leaves let go of their green chlorophyl, so their deep colors are revealed. When I feel encumbered by heavy memories, mistakes, failures. When I feel regret for things undone, unsung, I pray in this way. I take all the feelings and memories and release them into the loving hands of Spirit. Ego desires for acknowledgement, success. I let go. Ego wounds from rejections, betrayals. I let go. Loneliness, weariness, I let go.

Spirit, here I am, all imperfect, yet gifted, all hungering for justice, yet broken with this land and country. I sit alone, yet I feel your presence, and I turn to you, again and again. I let go. I am small, but I am surrounded by and filled with your Love. There is a time for action, and there is also a time for surrender. I surrender to the River flowing. In this surrender there is trust and peace.

Someday, I will let go into the mystery of eternity, the mystery that is death. Each night, I let go into the mystery that is sleep. Each morning, I let go of what is not mine for this day, and I open to what blessings and what actions are here for me to take up. I am too small to try to carry the world. And yet, in this surrender, I am at one with all of the beings who surround me, people, animals, plants, spirits. We are all flowing in the River of Love.