The Leaf And The Tree by Edna St.Vincent Millay, a beautiful poem which to me explains the wonders of Natures ability to love, sacrifice and nurture itself in order to grow, a gift that mankind, itself a part of Nature, has forgotten how to do …..

When will you learn, myself, to be

a dying leaf on a living tree?

Budding, swelling, growing strong,

Wearing green, but not for long,

Drawing sustenance from air,

That other leaves, and you not there,

May bud, and at the autumn’s call

Wearing russet, ready to fall?

Has not this trunk a deed to do

Unguessed by small and tremulous you?

Shall not these branches in the end

To wisdom and the truth ascend?

And the great lightning plunging by

Look sidewise with a golden eye

To glimpse a tree so tall and proud

It sheds its leaves upon a cloud?

Here, I think, is the heart’s grief:

The tree, no mightier than the leaf,

Makes firm its root and spreads it crown

And stands; but in the end comes down.

That airy top no boy could climb

Is trodden in a little time

By cattle on their way to drink.

The fluttering thoughts a leaf can think,

That hears the wind and waits its turn,

Have taught it all a tree can learn.

Time can make soft that iron wood.

The tallest trunk that ever stood,

In time, without a dream to keep,

Crawls in beside the root to sleep.

Mankind is fortunately awakening to the reality of self love and is relearning what it needs to do to live eternally.  We must love, trust and believe in ourselves to be able to grow, regenerating ourselves into stronger more powerful beings, to sacrifice our past and to nurture our future.  Only by loving ourselves can we love and appreciate others and every living thing around us, only by sacrificing some of the love we have for ourselves can we expect others to share their love with us.  That shared love is like the leaf falling from the tree to feed the trees roots, giving the tree the strength to grow and regenerate and begin the cycle over and over again.  So take a tip from Nature, love and trust yourself, sacrifice a little and share some love with everything and every person around you.