The Poplars Told Me

Today I share a piece of writing inspired by my word of the month for June: GROWTH.

In the Slow Friends Community we’re journalling and meditating our way through the seasons this year, using a framework of words to help guide our self-discovery journeys.

I was pleased to also have this piece featured on BBC Radio.
You can listen to my work alongside some other fantastic creations or
skip ahead to 1.28.11 (it’s also a slightly more professional audio version!).

The Poplars Told Me
Listening to the truth of Nature.

They have been present throughout my whole life — or at least the life that is most memorable to me, since age eight — and yet I’m not sure I have noticed, or perhaps listened to them in the same way as I did that day.

The sun was burning hot, the sky pure blue, and so we moored next to a circle of willow wands formed into dancing ladies, where we could lie down in their shade and contemplate life.

This year has been named my year of living ‘in flux’ because the ideas and thoughts tumble with unwavering regularity, weaving their way through every molecule of my being as a captivating piece of music might transport us to another plane; both in this world and yet…not.

I am rapturous within the process and yet feel apathy toward outcome. I am swirling within creation, with no thought to reach shore.

Society requires answers, though, and thus I feel compelled to provide them and so I look to the poplar trees.

I’m not sure I have been home to see them every year these past 40, in fact I can be sure I have not given these long-standing wandering feet. And yet they are present in many of the fleeting images and memories that skate past my eyes; they are rooted in my flitting heart helping me retain some notion of belonging. And so, I trust them; these poplars.

Staring at them from the vantage point of the dancing ladies I ask them to show me the way, to tell me how I must grow at this stage of life that feels as tender and as exciting and as terrifying as the tentative first steps my 18-year-old daughter is now making out into this world. I ask them to show me where I have already grown, to remind me of the experiences that shape who I am. I implore them to nourish me with the strength required to expand when, in truth, often the inclination is to shrink. And I close my eyes in the stillness—the stifling heat—and ask that they guide me as I lay myself bare, open and willing to embrace the growth that cannot be captured in neat lines of well-executed plans.

The earth beats beneath me, solid and steady. The distant hum of traffic, of a world that moves too fast for me, tries to capture my attention but it does not have the grip of the more subtle yet bewitching sounds of nature. Moorhens chirp, geese honk, ducks quack, water laps as boats pass and all the while the faint yet ever-present quivering of the poplars filters into my thoughts.

I am reminded that growth comes with seasons, that some seasons are more abundant than others, but that each allows for the time needed to process and produce.

All we must do in life is trust this process.

So I lie back and I listen and I marvel and I plan and I know that if I allow myself to do this without fear, that my growth will happen just as it should, year on year.

I ponder why I have never looked to the poplars before for guidance, for everything feels gently clear in their presence and so I close my eyes and give over to the dreams, the swirling thoughts, the hub of creation that pulsates at my core and I have faith that just as they flourish in growth with each season, so will I.

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Thank you for reading/listening.

With love,

Alice 🙏🏻