There is a maple at the edge of the old wood that I have visited for years. It has never once seemed to be in a hurry.
We measure our lives in deadlines and milestones. The tree measures its life in rings — each one a full year of standing in the same place, drinking the same rain, reaching for the same sliver of sky. There is no ambition in it, only continuation.
What slowness knows
I used to think patience was the absence of action. I have come to think it is a different kind of action entirely — the action of staying. Of remaining present to a thing long enough for it to reveal itself.
The root does not rush toward the water. It grows toward it, and in the growing, becomes the kind of thing that can receive it.
The forest does not owe me a lesson. But when I am quiet enough, it offers them anyway.
A practice of attention
Try this: the next time you walk among trees, count nothing. Name nothing. Simply notice where your attention lands, and let it rest there longer than feels comfortable.
That is where the teaching lives — not in the naming, but in the lingering.
🙏🏻💖✨
Written byMat LegerWalking the green path, and writing it down.