What have you signed up for (and paid for) and then not used? Years ago as a student I paid for a gym membership that I never used and was too embarrassed to go in and cancel so I kept paying and kept feeling disappointed in myself for not going…
Fast forward a few decades. I signed up for a virtual tree identification workshop. I read somewhere that if we meet a person one of the ways to get to know them is to learn their name and this applies to trees as well. It helps our brains differentiate one beautiful living tree from the next and they start to take on an individual character.
Surely I could watch videos from a 4 week workshop about a topic that I enjoy learning about? Well I didn’t watch them as live presentations, but that’s ok, I had access to the recordings for a month afterwards. Apparently I am very busy because I still didn’t watch them! Good grief, why did I pay for this? On almost the last day I watched the first video! It doesn’t sound like a huge accomplishment but it was. For whatever reason access to the videos remained and while away on a trip I watched the rest of the videos (one during a flight).
I’m fascinated by so much when it comes to trees but I was reminded of the mystery of Jack Pine tree cones. They’re covered in a sticky resin seal and the seeds are only released when exposed to very high temperatures (think forest fires). The seeds can stay hidden for years and if and when they are released, the ground is ash-cleared and the soil is nutrient rich. Is this like the feelings we lock deep within us? Then we get triggered and that fire melts our resin? Our feelings are released, but where do they land?
(This photo is from the University of Guelph Arboretum)
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