"like a lovers gaze into your eyes, you can't pull yourself away from looking as well."

©brokenimagery

If there's one thing Oregon is not short of, that would be trees. Even here, in the city, they dress the streets, their branches clothing the roads like a scarf over your shoulders on a cool fall day.

The colors are hypnotizing in November, like a lovers gaze into your eyes, you can't pull yourself away from looking as well.

One day, in mid April I went for a walk with my camera, and my eyes were just about paralyzed the moment I glanced at this trees body. Instantly I fell short of being able to take another step. Slowly I lifted my hand and pressed it onto the center where the bark was peeling away from. There was a beating heart there- and a wounded soul as well. I found myself in this tree at that very moment. The feeling of being transparent in one of the most vulnerable ways possible; love. Here we are in life, sometimes hiding from it, denying it the right that our hearts crave for. My love is the best thing I can offer anyone...but in my biggest realization this last year, I cannot offer that quality if I'm not able to offer it to myself as well. This love I speak of is what carries me throughout my daily living, it dances with me and even the strangers I pass on the sidewalks with.

Fixated on this tree I was unable to move. Finally, in my breaking away, I had to find how I could properly catch its essence. I believe I did. It's limbs outstretched, like arms, its chest exposed, baring the layers to still witness its process of its life left...how brave are we when we do this ourselves? Pretty damn brave I think...when I say my love is the best thing I have to offer, I mean it. When I decide to do this, I tear away at the coverings of my own heart...slowly taking away layer after layer of disappointments, rejection, and its own brokenness. Hopefully, this love I speak of, my heart, will only get stronger over the years. As I learn to love, I learn its nature, that is which I will never fully understand, and that is acceptance. My challenge, is to be like this tree, and routinely shed away the old, and make room for the new growth and love in the seasons that come and go...for seasons are not just a turning of weather, but they are a point of growth and new life in the journeys we continue on with as we choose to live and let go...