Woo Woo

 

By Pauline Evanosky

Where Progress Is a Tree

I like being in a place where it happens occasionally that I realize things. Specifically, I realize things in a burst. Not a slow coming to a conclusion sort of thing that might take me months to do. A sudden insight. This time, I realized that progress was not a straight shot. It wasn’t upward. It wasn’t sideways. There was nothing straight about it.

I realized progress for me looked like a tree. The beginning, of course, was a seed, a shoot, a sprout. As your resolve and attention focus, tiny roots move through the dirt. You have a teacher or a tutor (could even be YouTube) who instructs you in the way they perceive progress. That’s okay. You need some first steps.

At some point, you remove the training wheels, and you go off cycling on your own. This is where your progress starts acting like a tree. It moves. It is alive. And tiny branches begin to form. Yes, maybe it is only a branch at a time, but then you get to a point where your branches have branches and leaves are sprouting all over the tree.

This is progress.

You move at your own pace. I don’t know why I never realized this. And now that I know? I think I can relax a little bit. I don’t need to worry if I’m on the right track. I can be assured that I actually know where I’m going, even if the end dances around on the horizon like a mirage.

Another thing I have to school myself on is my expectation of where progress takes me.

As a writer, I envision that my books will eventually be published. This is where my magical mind expects Prince Publisher to drop out of the sky with my shoe in hand. What I have to remind myself is to believe in the magic of manifestation and to send out prayers to enlist the help of whoever it might turn out to be to help me through the minefield of publishing.

I’m not sure why I just called it a minefield. I can imagine at this point what earth torn and mounded on a battlefield looks like easier than I can imagine what publishing is going to be like.

Okay, I admit. It is fear that is standing in the way. Fear only delays progress. Does a tree fear? I doubt it. Even with flames licking around its trunk, I don’t think a tree fears. That’s how they figured out the baby sequoias in Yosemite grew. It was through the heat of forest fires. The forest rangers had not known that. They’d been trying for years to get new sequoias to grow. It wasn’t until they instituted a program of prescribed burns, just as the Native Americans had done for thousands of years, in the 1960s, that new trees began to grow and to protect and cultivate the land.

As a psychic, I can only imagine what a tree feels. It would take more than what I can do now to experience that, though I can tell you it is possible. The closest I can get is when my houseplants are thirsty. It isn’t a panicky or a negative feeling. They are thirsty. I understand.

Thanks for reading.
Pauline Evanosky

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