I’m house sitting for my sister while she’s traveling for the holidays. Just outside her office window is a bird feeder (presently covered with goldfinches, Lesser Goldfinches to be exact).
When I filled the feeder yesterday, I started in on pruning the roses under it, and today I finished the pruning, all the roses along the driveway and the roses in the back yard. There’s our mother’s old Peace Rose, still hanging in there even though it’s more than 30 years old.
Pruning roses presents a lot of interesting metaphores for life. Here is some deadwood, I need to cut it away so that it doesn’t draw disease into the plant. There are some old canes that are no longer productive that need to be cut out to let the newer canes flourish. Don’t leave the canes too long, cut them shorter so that the new stems they put out will be fewer, but stronger. When there are several canes all in the same area, or canes that cross paths, pick one and remove the others. Leaving them all will just result in a tangle and no good blooms will come from any of the canes.
I’m done pruning the roses. I see in my mind’s eye the blooms they will produce this spring. Now I need to prune my life. I need to get rid of the deadwood, the old and unproductive habits and posessions. I need to pick from crossing (conflicting) activities and focus on those that will bring positive results in the coming year.