Lessons from the Jacaranda

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In February each year, the Jacaranda trees get noticed. Not for their beauty, but for their shedding of leaves everywhere.

The dead leaves take over my lawn, my driveway, and everything looks a mess. The trees start to look bare and ugly.

Early March we see tiny purple buds struggling to appear on the bare branches, almost like a painful metamorphosis to come into their own.

Come April, and the Jacaranda trees are bursting with flowers. They stand there like stars in an otherwise dull pageant, stealing every bit of limelight. They throw up a riot of purple all over the hills.

Their time in the sun is short, but they outshine every tree in the Nilgiris during this season. The blooms fall from the branches like a merry dance in the light April breeze., turning the ground into a purple carpet. It’s one of the most spectacular sights each year.

As we tread into May, these beauties are done with their magical spell, having let go of their blooms, turning bare once again. They recede into the background and painfully grow back their leaves over the next couple of months – their time on the centre stage is over – a reminder that nothing lasts forever, neither the season of bloom nor the difficult period of being stripped bare.

I love sitting under my Jacarandas, surrounded by purple. It allows me to still my restless mind. A time to surrender to the universe, learning to let things take their course.

The pain of stripping ourselves, shedding our leaves. The patience to go through a period of pain before bursting into bloom. The optimism in believing that nothing lasts forever, not even the baring of our souls. For with the effort of growing those buds and nourishing them comes the immense pleasure of taking over a landscape and even the skyline. It makes me believe that its worth the downtimes, worth the wait, worth the heartbreaks and often tears when we emerge into our vibrant selves.

Acceptance comes to us in strange ways. For me it comes when I sit on my carpet of purple, in the stillness of a quiet corner of my garden.