What secrets of the inner life of things are locked within the bursting bud or blade of grass that finds its way to light and air in answer to the call of Spring?
We go our separate ways unheeding of the signs around us, the daily needs our chief concern. Like human ants we scurry here and there till, slipping into some strange pool of silence -- or are we pushed? we lose our fevered selves and seem to be reborn, if only for a fleeting moment, with eyes that see, and ears that hear the growing things. Yet here before us is no sudden magic. Had we watched day by day we might have seen the gradual uncurling of leaf or flower bud, and sensed the plan and purpose of each change. More than beauty of form and color works its way into our consciousness: there is in this harmony of line a spiritual fulfillment that makes us marvel at the symmetry of nature.
Is the tree, with subtle power to challenge and inspire, a more perfected entity than man? And if not, why the sudden hush that comes upon us in a grove of redwoods, or the sense of spiritual elevation that the forest depths impart? Perhaps the tree in its simple obedience to the law of its life brings to our consciousness the harmony that can result from such obedience -- and so with all things that live naturally. Man, too, is a part of the law, but he must choose to follow it consciously, willingly, making his life by that very choice a thing of greater beauty, giving to it such unity of plan and purpose that his presence among his fellows may be a healing and a benediction.
(From Sunrise magazine, February/March 1984. Copyright © 1984 by Theosophical University Press)