Recently I was travelling a long distance to attend a funeral in the northwest of Victoria. It was a very long drive, and I had many stops along the way. At one small country town, I walked to the service station to get a drink and, I have to say, a delicious ice cream. As I was walking, I stepped on a tree that was etched into the concrete footpath. It was amazing! I kept walking though, almost automatically, and then I realised that it was special. Go back, look at it, I told myself.
So I did. And it was and is truly amazing and beautiful. I’ve never seen a tree edged into the footpath like that. I searched the Internet to see if there was a story about it. There was none. On my return trip, I stopped there again and walked around the footpaths and found others. I asked a local and they said that the Council had done it and they would have preferred that they used the mallee tree. They said it reminded them of the tree of life.
So why am I talking about this? Well, I felt like there was a lot to learn from this experience.
We are walking through life automatically, not really turning our minds to what is happening around us; to the beauty around us, to the unique and the special. And at the same time, we’re being controlled by expectations of society. We just keep on walking, walking, walking. Sometimes we need something to snap us out of our automation. Sometimes that something feels hard and painful. Sometimes it is beautiful. Each trigger, however it happens to you, is actually neutral.
The effect of whatever the trigger is, is to bring you back to your core and back to the present. Your core is who you are. Asking who you are every day is essential for remaining true to yourself and in the present moment.
This was such an important and beautiful reminder to me because I am a tree. I named myself after a tree. Tree mythology is incredibly important to me. Coming back every day to the present is how I can be my best and highest and truest self.
This was the message from the footpath of a dry, dusty, country town in northwest Victoria: keep coming back to your true essence. That is where the magic is.
Where is your magic? If you don’t know, ask to find it and when the answer presents itself, be prepared to stop, turn around, get off society’s footpath and create your own.