Helicopter Seeds

When I was a kid...
I remember playgrounds and swingsets, and winter changing to spring. Everything in the world of grey and brown would turn green, and new life would emerge. I remember the "helicopters" - when the sky would be filled with one of God's most inventive creations. The oak trees around my house would release seeds that had make-shift propellers -- without which the seed would never survive. If the seed were left to the forces of nature, it would fall to the earth and take root in the shadow of its parent... depriving it of food, warmth, thus ending it's life in the nascent stage. Ironic - that the grand design makes the shelter of the parent suffocating...
However, with the propeller - the seed finds new ground, and takes root. It is free from the empty earth its parent drained years ago, it lies now in the direct light that is its lifeline...
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I have found new ground, and new light -- it seems my new location is a constant instructor. I went flyfishing today, without my iPod or my cell phone, my laptop or my television set. Relaxing on a rock after a whole morning's empty catch, I began to notice the "helicopters" falling from some trees by the brook. They fell, some landing in the water -- others finding a precarious home along the cliff's edge. Meanwhile, some found secure ground in the narrow, empty field at the river's edge.
We all fall away from our beginning, and only then do we truly "begin". Our environment sculpts our lives, until we ourselves are unable to recognize what we have become. We look back on the past, and ask, "How did I get here?" ---
It must have been the wind...


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This was a piece of divine inspiration... aside from the "Like a Stone" or "Where the Streets Have no Names" blogs, this is probably my favorite. I was fishing that day in Ogden Canyon, a beautiful mouthpiece to the High Uinta Mountains... The Ogden River flows amongst the rocks, unbeknownst to the trees crowding its banks. It was that time of year, that very day, where the 'helicopter seeds' made their maiden voyage of flight. I ate my lunch on a rock, after realizing hip-waders were a bad idea in a deep river - I was soaked, and cold. I watched them fall. It was like a seen in a movie, somewhere at a graveside where the director always includes some promise of new life. I pictured the withering parents, and their offspring, and drew the correlation you find here. Enjoy.

B