Death Rebirth Cycle.. Nature as a teacher and guide through Grief

Every year I get to witness the beauty and cycles of Nature in my very own yard. Every season teaches me something new and helps me to integrate and understand the lessons of my life at a deeper level.

My garden has been the greatest guide and ally, as I sit with my grief. When I tend to my garden, she reciprocates the love by tending to my grief. Then she reveals to me the answers to the questions I am trying to understand.

One day I was out in my garden watering my plantitas, and I noticed these interesting looking caterpillars on my Rue plant. They looked like little baby snakes. I was a little alarmed, because this particular Rue plant was my mother in laws that I inherited when she passed. I was about to remove the caterpillars when I heard them say to me, “Trust”. And it brought up so much emotion for me because the garden is such an important way I stay connected to my mother in laws spirit. We always bonded over plants, and for me it has been such an honor to steward her little plantitas that she had cared for with so much love.

So, as I sat with the medicine of this Rue plant and caterpillars, I realized how much this represents motherhood sometimes. As Mothers we bare life, and our children receive the nourishment they need from us. During pregnancy they receive nourishment from our Womb, and as we raise them, we center our lives to guide them, nourish and protect them, and we do so with Love.

Then one day the caterpillars were gone, and all of the Rue’s leaves were eaten. She had given her life, as she held the caterpillars through their transformation. It also, made me think of my Mother in Law passing but how her spirit is still here with us through these plants, holding us through this threshold of Grief, nurturing us as we go through this rebirth portal.

It made me think of myself, raising my 2 boys, who are now entering adulthood. Man, no one tells you but this transition is it’s own initiation and rebirth portal. Because everything I thought I had to be to keep them safe, is now the very thing that keeps them from flying. And who am I now, if I am not their overprotective mother? I am like this Rue plant without leaves.

But then this beautiful thing happened. The Rue plant started to regenerate and re-grow its leaves. Trust, trust in the regenerative process, Trust in the Re-birth Cycles of our lives. Yes, my mother in law died. She bore 10 children and nourished them and raised them the best she could, so that they could fly. And at the end of her physical life, when there appears to be nothing left of her, we learn to Trust that she has transformed and grown new leaves of a different form, as she continues to hold us through our own rebirth cycles.

Trust, that as my own children grow and learn to fly, I will feel bear, but I’m not dying. I am resting, and remembering that I too can regenerate. I too am being transformed and will re-grow new leaves.