The Wonder Of Renewal
by Bekah Mamola-Hill

I walked through a forest that had burned.
Blackened trunks, ash underfoot –
what I would have once
called ruined.

I expected silence in something so desiccated.

But it wasn’t silent.
Birds moved through the branches,
their songs threading through the stillness.
Small animals carved out homes in what I might
have dismissed as debris. Life continued,
without apprehension.

The ground felt soft and yielding under my feet,like it was in a kind of winter -hibernating, gathering strength,
preparing something I couldn’t yet see
beneath the scorched earth.

There was a moment when my understanding
didn’t match what was in front of me.
Something stirred in me, quiet,
almost questioning.

And instead of trying to resolve it,
I let myself stay there in that not-knowing.

And that felt like wonder.
Not something bright or obvious,
but like the gentle give of the ground under me,
holding something unseen,
still becoming.

The forest had burned, and yet it was alive.
Green would return,
and the burn would return again, too.

Somewhere in that sequence –
of change, growth, resilience – I understood:
the cycle would continue, larger than me, yet part of me too.

And in that, I felt wonder:
in the unfolding of life happening where I cannot see,
endlessly renewing itself beyond
my understanding.

What a wonder it is to not know.

Much Love from UPLIFT
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