Advent and the Season of the Sticks
I’ve been thinking a lot about trees. Partly because it’s the time of year Vermonters call stick season - a term Noah Kahan has graciously introduced to our vocabularies - and the spaces I occupy are filled with trees standing just as tall as ever without their foliage. I love how trees look in this season. The dark silhouettes of their branches against the sky without leaves or snow to give them anything extra offer some solidity in the often bleak atmosphere of imminent winter. These are trees in their most true form.
Honesty is the other reason trees have been on my mind. Honesty has been the topic chosen at several of the meetings I’ve been to in the past couple weeks, and I feel that the trees have a cool message about honesty, especially at this time of year. The trees in stick season exist in complete honesty, baring their forms without anything to obscure weird angles or branches broken in a storm. We’ve seen them in their full greenery and have also witnessed that foliage cross into shades of sunset and brown before dying and parting ways with the tree. The leaves have brief lives compared to the trees; they are a true part of the tree’s being, existing as offshoots and serving various purposes, but for many trees, the leaves don’t live long.
Leaves are like the labels we add to our own sense of identity in life. Labels we affix to our sense of self such as job titles, personality traits, our ages, resume items, relationships, preferences, etc. They are ways in which we strive to present ourselves and be known in the world. There’s nothing wrong with these labels, but often they function in a way that inhibits our true selves from being known. Leaves can also be the material things we accumulate, the accomplishments we want acknowledged, the people in our circle of friends and lovers. These are important to our sense of self in varying ways, some more important than others, but they are not who we are at our core.
We might objectively view the stark silhouettes of trees in the winter as a bit ugly if considered in comparison to how they look with a sunset of foliage or with the green of summer on them. But I’ve seldom heard criticism of how the tree exists even in this stripped down form. We don’t say the branches are too long or too many, and we don’t say it would be better if only they angled differently toward the sky or were a bit shorter overall. We accept the trees for what they are, and even if we have an initial view of them as a bit ugly, the more time we spend understanding and knowing the skeletal forms as they are, we can cultivate real knowledge and appreciation of its place in creation. The way in which the trees reach out with their branches is also something worth considering. Rooted securely in the ground, their most stable parts are their trunks, and the higher they reach , the thinner and more fracturable their branches become. They exhibit vulnerability along with their honesty, and that’s where a lot of their beauty lies: in the delicate, thin arches of their extended arms. These are the parts so easy to break, and these are the parts they present so naturally as extensions of their strong bases. They stand there despite the seasonal loss of their foliage with the same height and strength they have in every season.
The tree we’ve chosen to be the Christmas tree is a great choice for its purpose. The evergreen appears unchanging, consistent and true to the same self year round. Traditionally, the tree served as a reminder that all of nature would return to its state of thriving life in time. The Romans used evergreen sprigs in their celebration of the Winter Solstice - Saturnalia, in honor of Saturn, god of the harvest - to give thanks for the harvest that had come and to express hope for the life they believed would return. Countless other groups practiced similar traditions with this expression of hope in the cycle of returning life. In winter, it appears that the spirit of the trees has died or at least taken a vacation for a few months, but it’s just the leaves that have died. The evergreen reminds us that not all the life is gone, even if our transient leaf labels don’t remain perennial.
Today is the third Sunday of Advent - Gaudete Sunday, if you’re looking to expand your trivia knowledge. Gaudete is the Latin imperative for rejoice, and the Sunday is thus called because we’re nearing the goal of our waiting season. Christmas is about a week away, and the anticipation heightens along with any frenzied last-minute preparation that needs doing. The real preparation of course is meant to be internal.
The name Advent is rooted in the Latin verb advenire - to approach or arrive at. The -nt- ending of the word tells us that it’s a present active participle, the form of the verb that involves ongoing action happening in the now. It is a time of preparation for and anticipation of a promise we have faith will come to fruition. It’s a time of being present with the waiting and recognizing that the waiting is not a passive existence, but a period of moving and evolving toward a state already within our grasp. The evergreen helps us come to terms with this concept if we look at its symbolic importance rather than using it as a mere decoration.
In Catholic tradition, we’re readying ourselves for the birth of Jesus, a celebration of God being born onto our level in an experience of such love and humility so we can experience our connection with Him and each other more vividly. The evergreen reminds us that this sense of connection we call the Christmas spirit doesn’t have to be once a year- it’s an always option for us if we practice tuning into it.
The evergreen can also remind us that the seasons in our life don’t have to define who we are at our core. A tree’s foliage changes, but its form remains constant and consistently rebirths the life that lets us know trees in their most verdant state. Sometimes we might feel like the trees in stick season, I know I do sometimes. Especially in early recovery, it’s hard to live honestly when that means admitting I’m struggling and not yet the whole, healed person I want to be. I’m still sorting out a lot, learning to live with emotions and the wreckage of past mistakes, and practicing acceptance of myself and my life as it is. It’s hard to admit that I’m in a season of my life when I’ve stripped away a lot of the leaves I was so comfortable living in and have to just exist as this vulnerable, sort of scary-looking being for a while. I’m able to see the beauty and strength in the trees silhouetted against every Boston sunset or sunrise, but it’s hard to be the tree and stand there waiting for the change in season. Part of me just wants to be in the next season when I’ve achieved a more attractive set of leaves that clearly and visibly present the person I’ve become; but then so much of me also wants to just be the tree in all its naked honesty, loved and accepted for who I am because I’ve parted with my leaves and am still standing.
I know so many people in my life who have been through trying times and are so strong and resilient for it. People in my family and many in recovery whose stories tell of many hard seasons, but who have persevered through it because they didn’t hide themselves. They stood with honesty and vulnerability, and they continue to do so. And they stand in community with others. Trees thrive with others of their kind. They speak to each other in their own language, and they don’t live as long when conditions force them to exist alone. We’re like that too, even if every tendency in us urges us to hide when things are ugly. This time of year - both Advent and stick season - foster a practice of being present in the times we feel are just waiting for something better, something promised. They may be seasons of waiting, but they’re also seasons of arrival. To arrive at Christmas or any place in our life, we’re actively engaging in the steps that lead us there. We may be waiting for the goal, but in moving toward it we’re becoming the kind of people who are able to realize that this end goal is something to which we’ve had access all along.
