[In anticipation of Budget day!]

April is a magic month in the village where I live, because it is blessed with
the greatest gathering of Cherry trees I have ever seen. In fact the whole
county of Cambridgeshire has more than its fair share of "Cherry Tree" pubs and
"Cherry Tree" avenues. In the city of Cambridge itself, there are 2 roads
[Roseford Road and Grange Road] justifiably renowned for their avenue of trees.
Photos here:
http://www.cambridge2000.com/cambridge2000/html/0003/P3310381.html

In my village (Bar Hill) there is a wide range of Cherry blossom colours from
virgin white, to deep, rich red, with a festival of mixed or pink-coloured
petals in-between. The magnificence of Cherry Trees in flower in large measure
due to the blossom appearing in vast quantities before a single distracting leaf
has emerged i.e. it is a show of pure beauty - no distracting functional
practicalities like leaves to dilute the efflorescent abundance of radiant
blossoms!

If only life could be more like that! - pure abundant beauty with no messy
practicalities like earning a living, paying bills, negative equity, job-loss or
"balancing a budget" to worry about. Of course there are times when our life is
blossoming and it feels great to be alive. Yet, life, like Cherry trees, is an
ever-moving feast.

Today there is a gentle breeze and I noticed - with a twinge of regret - a white
"snow-fall" of blossom cascading into the wind from the Cherry tree in my
back-garden. The "good time" of living with that beautiful abundance right in my
back-yard are over - and how brief it was. "If only..." blossom time could last
longer! But the Wheel of Life turns inexorably and everything changes. After 10
million years of evolution, you would think that the human race would be used to
the unending wheel of change. But of course we aren't - we persist in clinging
to what is past, trying, against all odds, to keep it in the present.

I turn again to my Cherry Tree for inspiration. My goodness, the leaves are
really growing now! How come I hadn't noticed that? Those amazing blossoms has
blinded me to the Tree's steady progress of "Natural wisdom". The creative
energy and material resources that produced those blossoms came from the
"earning a living" that the tree did last year, and that creative (blossoming)
energy and garnered resources have now been spent. It is time for the tree to
invest in "the future" - to grow the leaves (energy traps) and roots
(re-sources) that will generate what is needed for the next season of blooming.
Without this "return to practicalities", the tree will not blossom next season.

If this tree responded to "blossom recession" with a strategy of "economic
stimulus" targeted at sustaining "boom & bloom" time, it would be pumping
resources into a lost cause - draining a diminishing pool of resources, giving
away the creative potential of the future in a vain bid to cling onto the past.

The good news is that the human race is as much part of, and accountable to,
NATURE (i.e. "God", "Goddess", The Great Scheme of Things, the energetic rules
of the universe) as my Cherry Tree. The blossoms of our economic boom season are
fading, and the more they fade, the more opportunity there will be to notice the
"green shoots" of our new growth - our renewed, purposeful productivity. Hidden
amongst those "green shoots" are another wonder of nature: the birthing of
nutritious fruit - nourishing fruit that needed the blossom to die, once it had
served its purpose. And within that fruit, destined to nourish others, lies the
seed of our own immortality!


Wishing everyone a fruitful season!

Mike

http://www.sunflower-health.com