The Wedding Trees

I don’t think I ever noticed how much trees “throw” leaves, flowers, nuts, seeds until I moved to Uganda and did a lot of walking and thinking and noticing. That was where I met the Jacaranda tree and felt the magic of being in a wedding or in a parade! There was a double row of these trees leading up a hill to a college library and I would go out of my way to make sure I could pass under them. The purple was such a contrast to the red dirt and I just soaked it in. Fast forward to moving back to the U.S. I am raising my children to notice nature and wedding trees!

This very morning I looked out onto my backyard and saw all this white stuff on the ground. I went out to take a closer look and it was petals! What?! We have a wedding tree in our backyard? I looked all around until I found it and sure enough. Has it always been here or is it just this year blooming? Who knows? That’s what’s fun about nature, it’s always changing. Now granted, we actually have a neighbors crepe myrtle and two cherry trees, which are also wedding trees, BUT our cars are parked under them, so it does not evoke the same magic!

I flat out think we spend a lot of time waiting and hoping. There are lots of symbols in nature of waiting and hope and these spring or beginning of the dry season trees remind us to take heart, a wedding is coming!

I love this picture of my daughters when they were younger. I used it when I wrote On Abandonment, , but it’s a wedding tree, so I had to repeat it!