Pruning as an Art and Life Lesson

Winter was ushered into the Deep South this week with thunderous applause bestowed on it by snow, freezing rain and the most dangerous inches of ice blanketing everything.  I have spent most of my life in a desperate search to find ways in which to evade winter’s terrible claws – including uprooting my life to the sunnier and more gentle south.  Everything about winter is difficult for me – bitter cold that somehow penetrates through my skin and thrusts deep into my core, gray skies that leave me wondering if color ever will paint the landscape again, and night edging the daylight out at earlier and earlier hours starving me of the sunlight that stabilizes moods and provides large doses of energy.

I have come to learn that there are lessons in winter if one sits and allows its teacher to whisper in an accepting ear.  The lesson took form and stepped into full view a week or two ago – the art of pruning was its name.  At first blush I shuddered at the thought of taking a cold, harsh blade and sacrificing the flesh of the beautiful plants, bushes, and trees that I adore.  These are the very elements of creation that feed my soul, provide nourishment to my body, and bring a kaleidoscope of color to the landscape on which my eyes feast. 

Rick provided the lesson.  He took me by the hand as we strolled his yard and offered an explanation of the value of taking the beautiful crape myrtles that fill my eyes with wonder each spring and reducing them to almost a shadow of the form I know so well.  It is hard enough for me to trust, even without the pruning, that the bare limbs stark in their simple form and waving in the crisp cold will come to life and burst with flower buds in a few short months.  My trust is tried further as clippers are taken to branches and in some cases limbs and a sacrifice is made of the plant that I love.  I am beckoned to place trust in the cycles of the seasons during a time in which I need beauty and color the most – life and nature are filled with irony.

Clippers in hand Rick and I wind our way to the back of the house by the pool holding our coats tightly against the cold and walking purposefully to the bed that I find almost impossible to face – the most beautiful hibiscus plants, four of them, that make summer dazzle and shimmer each day.  (Photo: Me with the hibiscus plant mid-summer.)  Rick offers me the clippers and provides instructions – each plant must be cut all the way back to the ground surface, reducing it to a bouquet of dried nubs to be forgotten.  As a child fuming over losing a favorite toy, I grab the clippers and attack the first plant fuming and frustrated until it is whittled to nothing – throwing the dead branches as darts against an angry cold sky. 

I am learning that as much as nature offers lessons, it also promises miracles within its solutions.  The lessons of pruning mirror the biblical paradox – “if one loses his/her life, he/she will find it.”  By cutting deeply into branches, one is offering the gift of a better and more productive life for the tree or plant.  This simple act provides the opportunity to stimulate growth with the option to produce growth even further back on the branches!  All this time I was thinking we were sacrificing but in reality we are adding with good measure.  Pruning rejuvenates and in some cases it encourages an outward push instead of growing into its center.  It removes what is superfluous or undesirable and lessens the chance of falling during a wind or ice storm.  Rick and I possibly are saving the lives of the plants we love so much with this simple act performed in the biting cold. 

It is clear to me, as I ponder the concept of pruning, that there are lessons for humans in this too.  Perhaps many of us find ourselves considering these lessons during this challenging economy that forces us to tighten belt buckles and consider areas in which we may be able to do without.  By cutting away the old and the excess, we make room for new and enriched opportunities and relationships. 

This lesson made its way into my life this afternoon as my little hatchback, filled to the roof, carefully made its way to the local Goodwill with items from a storage closet that my sister and I share.  Long forgotten, many of the items were taking up valuable/expensive space that could be better used by others.  By pruning these belongings I was reminded that this simple act forces us to look outward instead of having an internal focus, as roses do if not pruned timely and well. 

We never were promised that growth was easy and painless – for us or for the plants.  But perhaps the reward at the end of the journey is well worthwhile.  I’ll know this to be true when the hibiscus plant produces its first blooms in a few months and the red hues of its flowers lift to face the late spring sun.