I got quiet and asked, tell me about yourself— this is what I got:

I’m a tree with a million hearts.

Each one of my hearts dances in the wind and holds fast to the mother when the winds are rough.

I have small hearts and big ones, and veins that run from the center to my edges.

The mother tree is what nourishes the life within each one of my hearts.

She is stable and sturdy and has stood the test of time.

Each heart may change color—yellow—wither over time and fall to decompose on the earth.

But the tree does not stop growing. Does not stop loving.

Her life force never says, “That’s enough now.”

Her roots stretch wide underground.

She is being fed by nutrients, water, microbes, mycelium.

She is interconnection itself.

She has no choice but to let that which is natural travel up her trunk, her branches, the stems.

Spreading out her fingers to the tips and edges of each heart.

Each heart is not an individual lone warrior striving in the wind.

They are simply a result of the life within.

That has no other choice but to let love create.

Hundreds and thousands of connections.

Some will fall— some will last, but all will transform.

And she weeps not as fall blows her hearts far and wide.

Dancing their silent death to the winter’s breath.

Love stands tall throughout the time in the form of her trunk.

And I sit under her embrace on a bench.

Surrounded by a million hearts.

I asked her do you have a message for me?

You’re allowed to love and keep loving.

You are the tree, not just the leaf.

Your love for all life is as numerous as the strength of your roots.

Still—steady and wise.