Samara Wisdom

wishes and hopes and dreams don't have to come true to have value

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Nature is so full of wisdom, life lessons that connect with you just when you need them the most, if you’ll only keep an eye out as you wander, and leave a window open in your heart.

Every year, this maple tree produces an entire crown full of samaras. There must be a million of them.

Every samara holds twin seeds, twin hopes for future generations of maple trees. Season after season, millions upon millions of hopes.

The absolute vast majority of these hopes will never be fully realized. Of all the samaras that drift off into the summer breeze, only a few dozen will become seedlings. Of all the seedlings that begin their journey on this earth, only a handful will make it past the first year.

In the course of its lifetime, this maple is likely to produce only a few successors that will grow up to eventually join it, and perhaps in some distant future take its place, within the towering canopy.

And yet, the maple keeps producing millions of hopes, season after season, for the apparent sake of this very tiny few.

And yet, the truth is something more. Because not a single one of these millions of hopes is in any way wasted.

Each samara is already a complete exercise in joy and beauty and inspiration, before it has ever left the branch.

Every launched hope, should it fall short of full maturity, will also add its gifts to the flow of energy and nutrients that nourish every living thing.

And every single hope will have already been a complete exercise in trust and anticipation and preparation for the wide expanse of possibilities held within the boundaries of a bright future.

Yes, every hope that matures into a maple will be a beautiful thing.

But the more important point is that every hope will have already been a beautiful thing in its own right!

My life is like that, too. Each day, many wishes and hopes and dreams filter into my little stubbornly-optimistic brain. Many what-ifs and wouldn’t-it-be-nices and that-would-be-so-cools. Not many of them will ever fully mature. This world, as boundless as it is in many ways, is also constantly constrained by the limits of time and resources and competing possibilities, probabilities, and realities.

A million, million wishes and hopes and dreams, and if their value were measured by their ultimate fulfillment, what a failure and a waste and a loss it all would be.

To look ahead to what is possible in the future, and fashion a thoughtful vessel to contain its potential, and offer it into the sweeping current of the present, could never be a waste of time!

The samaras are already beautiful, and I celebrate them every single year, whether they grow into a towering maple or not. And my life is enriched every single year by their presence in this one early moment of origin, regardless of the journey’s ultimate end.

The world already became a better place the moment a new hope was born. And that’s why, no matter what eventually becomes of it, the hope is already the point.

Isn’t it funny how nature’s cycles work their way into our lives? It just so happens that on May 21st of last year, I was also writing about samaras, learning a little different lesson for a little different time…

Golden Maple Samara is available in my print gallery, in a wide selection of wall art options and custom-print products. I think it would make a beautiful mug for your favorite morning beverage - and an especially fun jigsaw puzzle!