Aug Meditation HERE
New Coaching Programs HERE
Granted, it’s a future problem for now, but nonetheless quite literally a very substantial one.
Specifically, if and when we move, how will Vlad and I get our maple tree off the terrace?
It was ten years ago that we got the tree off of Freecycle.org.
As the name makes clear, Freecycle is an online source for giving and receiving free items.
Given our new terrace (and tight budget), I jumped at a post offering the gardening bounty of the recently deceased Stella, via her daughter-in-law.
An avid gardener and world traveler, Stella led a full life, caring deeply for all the plants in her apartment and on her tiny balcony.
Scrambling to gather as much nature as we could, I hired a man with a van via Craigslist.
Within two hours we were transporting all sorts of unexpected greenery from Stella’s East End Avenue apartment all the way across the city to ours on the West End Avenue.
I repotted our maple tree and it became the first inhabitant of our terrace.
Note: even then she was already a supermodel, barely six feet tall yet incredibly skinny.
Here’s a pic of my maple on our terrace from that decade ago.
Now, exactly ten years and one move to Bushwick later—which is a whole other saga—my tree is more than two stories tall and massively wide.
In fact, except for an aerial shot from the roof, it’s hard to capture the entire tree in one photo.
Thus, here’s a shot of just my tree’s topmost branches through the window of our upstairs neighbor’s apartment, taken when I was watering their plants while they were on vacation last week.
I can think of no better embodiment for the theme of August’s new meditation––Expansion HERE––than my tree.
Expansion has been on my mind for many reasons.
Of course, as an artist/entrepreneur, a blind faith in the power of expansion is a prerequisite for the journey.
Beyond that though, I’m also struck by how central it is to the philosophy and poetry of anyone’s existence.
Writers, ranging from Walt Whitman––
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then, I contradict myself;
I am large, I contain multitudes”
––to Virginia Woolf––
“I am made and remade continually.
Different people draw different words from me,”
reveal how identity is not static but, like my tree, expands both exponentially and unpredictably.
Indeed, Anaïs Nin writing that “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage,” evokes that thought.
She even takes it further, citing that it’s life itself that’s inviting us (perhaps even insisting) that we expand:
“I’m restless.
Things are calling me away.
My hair is being pulled by the stars again.”
I love that this principle of expansion applies to both the soul and astrophysics.
On a recent Sunday walk with Vlad to Home Depot to buy a large geranium for our terrace table, I found a copy of Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a Hurry in a pile of “Take Me and Read Me” books on the sidewalk.
The first paragraph vividly illustrates how spectacular the spirit of expansion truly is:
“In the beginning, nearly fourteen billion years ago, all the space and all the matter and all the energy of the known universe was contained in a volume less thanone trillionth the size of the period that ends this sentence.”
I mean…Wow…
Tyson goes on to further detail the remarkable story of our cosmic beginnings, again a tale of rapid expansion.
For example, the universe grew from that trillionth of the size of a punctuation mark, to suddenly larger than the solar system, all of this taking place in about a millionth of a second.
Again…wow…
In the second chapter, I learned that it was really only until Newton’s laws were proven regarding broader cosmic events that scientists could confirm that the laws of physics which apply on earth apply everywhere.
Indeed, he says that despite endless adventures of curiosity, exploration, and discovery, “to the scientist, the universality of physical laws makes the cosmos a marvelously simple place.”
Significantly, this oddly but exactly parallels one of the books I’m compulsively re-reading these days, Wallace Wattles’ 1910 The Science of Getting Rich.
Wallace Wattles circa 1911
Throughout, Wattles talks about the Universe(which he has at least a dozen terms for, including “Infinite Intelligence,” “The Source of All,” “Thinking Stuff,” “Creative Power,” “Original Substance,” and even simply “God.”) operating under certain laws.
Thus, he can present everything he’s sharing as a science, rather than a mere philosophy.
One of these is “The Law of Perpetual Increase.”
Wallace posits that “The desire for increase is inherent in all nature; it is the fundamental impulse of the universe.”
Indeed, just as Tyson states with absolute confidence that the speed of light cannot be broken, Wattles is equally sure that “The law of the Increase of Life is as mathematically certain in its operation as the law of gravitation.”
The synergy here is all so compelling that I’m ready to drop everything and become the world’s first Astrophysical Metaphysician.
Back to my tree…
When I moved the tree to Brooklyn, I diligently measured the elevator’s diagonal angle to calculate exactly how tall my tree could be and still fit.
Now, even if I were to trim my tree back down to those vertical proportions for a move, there’s another problem: the size of its base.
The door to my terrace is a standard 34 inches wide.
The base of the transplanted tree now has a diameter of 48 inches.
Even with a two-story haircut, unless I trim over a foot all the way around, it’s impossible for it to exit the way it came in.
Thus for the future (still theoretical) move, we’re definitely in crane territory.
That day—when it happens—I imagine will definitely be an interactive event for the neighborhood.
And finally, just for fun, here’s a view of my tree’s massive expansion from yet another perspective: that of a random passerby on the street.
I was delighted this week to experience the harmony between the scientist and the spiritualist, both in complete agreement that the Universe (whatever name we give it) is by its very nature driven to expansion.
Again, the new meditation is HERE.
Sometimes we need the reminder that the entire cosmos is structured to move us forward magnificently.
And if you’re motivated to move forward with me by your side, there’s still a place left in each of my coaching programs HERE.
(There’s even a new one thatVlad thought of yesterday)
Most importantly, when you feel that your “hair is being pulled by the stars again,” trust that phenomenon.
It takes a millionth of a second for life to move from the inconceivably small to vaster than the solar system.
There may be challenges on the trip—like my tree no longer being able to ride the elevator for its eventual exit—but the expansion is not only worth it; it’s completely inevitable.
Namaste for Now,
