Trust (Republished)

Two Decembers ago, it was 65 degrees and my crocuses and tulips bloomed.

They trusted. They trusted their instinct that the time to bloom was at that moment.

It doesn't matter they were wrong. They knew to bloom when the warm weather comes, no matter what the calendar says.

They trusted to bloom when warmth begins again. That's how plants work, and it's how life is supposed to work. We grow when the warm season begins.

For parts of the world, that is year around. For the Northeast, it is from Spring to Autumn. Plants are on a clock.

Blooming in December is like planting your grass seed in Autumn instead of Spring. Bulbs can be planted indoors and stored in the refrigerator for two months.

For the New Year, remove the pot of earth with bulbs and place it on a sunny window, away from the cold. Your tulips will bloom. You have an early bloom, a glass bowl of Dutch Tulips, two months before your outdoors flowers bloom.

I've not been gardening this year, but for many years I did.

I was a pot gardener, a flower box gardener, rather than traipse to the backyard and put my mark there.

Where I live, space is a coveted commodity.

It is easy to water thirsty plants in a window box that hang over the porch; you can watch them bloom in the middle of the night.

All is quiet. Your flowers bloom. Ah.

Blooming is a special secret.  So is the human soul.  So is trust.

Trust is something you hope you can expect of certain people. Trust is something you hope you can expect of yourself. Trust can be something beautiful when you don't expect it. Trust is knowing someone for a long time. You just feel trust is there.

Sometimes a chasm erupts, like dry, wizened earth that thirsts for what it needs bit cannot get.

If it does not rain, cracks in the surface become many, as cracks spread.

Trust that water will feed the earth has eroded.

Something needs to happen. Pray for a rain dance.

With people, something similar happens. Trust can erode.

The soul needs watering; it has become parched. The cracks are gaping chasms; they threaten to become an abyss which cannot be mended.

Trust is important to restore. It is not easy.

Let rain heal the earth; let tears heal the parched crust of your soul.

Trust can begin again. I wish all who want to trust can find trust, in their own due time.