The cherry blossom tree in front of my home is in full bloom. As I’m sitting here underneath the tree typing to you, the delicate pink petals are dancing down through the air around me, onto my shoulder, and into my lap. Some get caught in my curly hair. There’s a blanket of pink confetti all around me as the afternoon sun hits the corner of the bench in front of my communal dwelling. We had been awaiting the blossom for more than a month as spring began announcing itself in March. “Are they open yet?” we would ask one another in the hallway. “Almost!” Almost!”
Last weekend the tree exploded into a mesmerizing pink cloud. The tree’s enthusiastically anticipated promise, kept. I had only one appointment on my calendar for the weekend. It just said “BOOM.” Boom means tree in Dutch. The all-caps notation indicating the urgent timing. As if to say: DO NOT MISS THIS! Blink and it’s over. As quick as they arrive the soft and luscious blossoms will make way for next season’s green foliage as soon as their work is done.
In Japan, there’s a communal ritual surrounding the blooming of the Sakura, or cherry blossom trees. The ritual is called Hanami and it literally means “flower viewing.” People gather together under the cherry blossom trees to celebrate the new season, to eat, drink, and sing together, or to sit in quiet contemplation. A meditation on beauty and brevity. “Are they so beautiful because they are so fleeting?” one of my housemates asks. We nod without taking our eyes off the branches, “probably.” There’s something about the inevitable death of a thing that can make us deeply appreciative of its presence.
My appointment with the tree was a simple and serious assignment. I spread a picnic blanket on the pavement. Then I laid down on the ground to stare up at the tree. Anyone willing to join welcome to do so. I have enough experience with tree gazing to know that staring up at a tree in a seated position takes a toll on the neck rather quickly. The most ideal viewing position is laying down on the floor, looking up at the sky. Allowing yourself this type of comfort, even on a busy sidewalk, ensures a proper viewing session.
Passersby smiled at our blossom viewing station, mostly amused. One older man stopped and commented: “Y’all look like a piece of art!” We smiled. A teenage boy walked by with a group of his peers. He laid down next us asking: “What are we looking at?” His friends laughed at his irreverent tone and about the fact he plopped down on top of the sidewalk chalk dusting his black coat pink and yellow. We welcomed him and pointed at the flowers, smiling. He shrugged his shoulders in performative aloofness meant to impress his friends: “ugh, boring!” The teenagers laughed in cynical comradery, and we laughed in utter disbelief: “Boring?!” Beauty can be invisible to anyone trying to protect a particular identity.
I spent about 6 hours looking up at the pink bloom, lit up by the sun against a bright blue sky. Moving between the sensations of squealing excitement, to an almost aggravated frustration with the inconceivable cuteness of the swaying pink clusters, to a warm melancholy around the temporary nature of this magical phenomenon, to a quiet presence – witnessing the moment exactly as it is.
One of my most treasured quotes comes from the mystical work of Simone Weil. It goes: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” There’s a part of me that wants to consume the beauty of the blossoming tree in its immense majesty. To capture it. To hold on to it. Knowing full well that I never will. The only gift I can offer the tree in return for its beauty is my undivided attention.
Today’s full moon in Libra is connected to the theme of relationship. Relationship is born and nurtured in the generosity of our deepest attention. We are always in some type of relationship with everything that surrounds us. The levels of awareness we cultivate around that fact determines the richness of our relationships. It contributes to our sense of belonging on this planet, and to each other. The medicine is as simple as it is challenging in the perpetually busy realm of human-made distractions fighting for our attention. But, even still, the medicine is always available: Tune in. That blossoming tree has secrets to tell you (and as Rumi, one of my most beloved teachers from another time, would continue: “Don’t go back to sleep!”)
I’m going to gaze up at the tree for a while longer as the petals are quickly descending. I will leave you with an invitation: Find something that blooms in your world – that can be a dandelion in a park, a blossoming tree, the flowering vine crawling up a city building, or a tulip on a table, – any bloom will do, and spend some time looking at it with real attention. How does it feel to offer your attention as a gift to that which is alive around you? This world is full of brief instances of beauty. Blink and it’s over. Gaze and it may gift you something so precious, it could inspire you for a lifetime.
The full Rumi poem, translated by Coleman Barks, Essential Rumi:
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
The Simone Weil quote: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” From: Letter to Joë Bousquet, 13 April 1942; Simone Pétrement Simone Weil: A Life (1976) tr. Raymond Rosenthal
All images made my Yvet Youssef
Subscribe here to get a notification when we post something new. Be sure to confirm your subscription in your inbox (and check your spam folder!)
Metaphysical Mulch 