Living on a Wheel.

Ever since I first began to understand the workings of the natural world at age 30 I’ve been struck by the poignancy of the annual cycle.

We see the new growth appear in spring. We watch with optimism as it develops and flourishes. We rejoice as it burgeons and blooms and stands proud during the spring and summer, alive and fully functional. And then autumn comes along and it begins to fade. Green turns to brown; the stems which held the plants upright and strong grow thin and weak until they bow in the face of the inevitable; leaves fall and join the general dead detritus on its way back the land and oblivion. And then the torpor of winter holds sway until spring arrives and the whole cycle begins again.

And yet it’s interesting that I’ve only recently become highly conscious of the fact that precisely the same thing happens to us humans. We, too, grow old, fading and growing weak and dysfunctional in the face of the inevitable. We, too, fall over as dead detritus on our way back to the land and oblivion.

Or is it precisely the same? Do we or don’t we rise again with the coming of another spring? If the world of perennial plants works that way, why shouldn’t we? If only we could know the truth of this, I suspect that the human animal would treat life very differently and the world would be a different place.