I have a beautiful lilac bush, and I mean a huge bush, in my yard whose fragrance I enjoy each spring. It is so beautiful and full of blossoms that even when you are on the other side of the farm, if the breeze flows just right, you can smell the lovely fragrance of lilac.
Two Saturdays ago after returning from ‘date night’ with my husband we went to see the lilac bush, as it was almost time for it to blossom. When I looked closely however I saw a vine had enmeshed itself through out the lilac bush and the lilac was at risk of being smothered. This wasn’t a small vine. This vine had trunks that looked like a tree, and its expanding tentacles were everywhere.
Much to my husbands dismay, he was quite ready to relax for the evening, I asked if he would please get the saw, hatchet and a few other ‘chop down the vine’ items…we have to free the lilac bush from this vine….he had grumblings about really? Now? Can’t it wait until morning? But I was unyielding, it was something I felt needed to be done right now. Truthfully, at the pace life is currently going I was afraid it would never get done or most likely we would forget, until it was too late.
We began cutting and pulling and sawing and yanking, once we both counted to 3 and pulled which quickly landed us both on our backsides, laughing hysterically. This got me thinking about how innocently we allow people and situations into our lives that slowly take over, suffocating us, diminishing our fragrance and choking off our sustenance. It might be a job that no longer excites us, or a relationship that brings us down. It could be the negative voice of another or an old memory of a teacher, mother or father saying “you’ll never amount to anything”. It could even be our own negative thoughts that over time wear us down preventing us from blossoming and fully expressing our gifts in the world.
Perhaps we are doing this to another. Someone we love, someone we are afraid to let go of. It could be innocent comments we make about another’s life that keeps them off balance and doubting their own inner knowing. It could be our need to control our children or our partners so we can feel safe or prevent change.
Whatever the intrusive vines are in your life I invite you to get out your saw, your ax, your clippers and begin to pull, pull, pull. To enmesh your energy with another will always diminish you both. Yes there will be times, like my husband and myself, that you will fall on your backside and I hope like us you will laugh at the absurdity of it all.
It does not mean that you can not be completely and fully in each others lives in an interdependent way that allows each of you to blossom, in fact you can support each others blossoms, marvel at the fragrance and keep your lives full, exciting and fresh. We cannot save another nor can anyone save us. We cannot control another, nor should we ever allow another to control us. All we can do is help, love and support each other in a way that allows all of us to be more of who we were meant to be.
