This morning just before  sunrise I looked out of the back window of the house where the crabapple tree arches over the house. My attention was riveted on a single crabapple and how it hung by a thin stem onto the sleeping tree. How it stayed there by a tiny thread. It moved me. “Why?”  I asked myself.

I then traced the line of connection from the crabapple, down the twig, the small branch, the large branch, the trunk, and into the roots. The answer came that I was moved because of the connection, the absence of separation between the crabapple and the roots. I felt this connection in myself, in my heart.

When I resolve to hold onto this connectedness, this oneness, I have the strength of my own heart and I can live my life from the heart. I can bear the pain that comes my way without projecting it out onto the “other,” in order to avoid feeling it.

The reward? Self possession. An awakened heart.

Thank you, dear crabapple tree.