Chapter 130: Equal Roots
Ta Prohm Temple, Cambodia 2025 (roots for days!)
The sun shines brightly onto my dining table, where I sit writing on this cold, winter morning. In the center of the table is a schlumbergera plant, a Christmas cactus. This succulent is decades older than I am, having once belonged to my grandfather and now to my mother. I am tasked with the deep responsibility of maintaining its health while my own parents do the smart winter activity: escape Minnesota to snowbird south.
Looking straight at this magnificent, aged succulent strikes me as profoundly important on this particular morning. This plant, in its sixth decade, at minimum, has seen generations of life pass it by.
At some point, it must have come from the ground, from seedlings somewhere in this vast world. It then surely met a captor- what terror it must have felt being plucked from its cozy earth to end up in a pot- and was transferred to a store. It must have sat on a shelf in a store for some time watching people pass it by until the day my grandfather saw it and brought it home. Once in his home, it witnessed the many wonders of life: the growth of children, the arguments of marriage, the worries and wonders of a generation long before my own. In those early days, the succulent likely overheard gasps and wails on the television of people witnessing civil rights infringements, presidential assassinations, and divisive wars of the 60s. It certainly bore witness to my grandparent’s and friends’ concerns through the Watergate scandal, severe economic challenges, and Kent State shootings of the 70s.
Once wiser, in its third or fourth decade of life, our succulent witnessed panic in our nation through the AIDS epidemic, the Challenger Space Shuttle catastrophe, growing inequality and divisive policies. And on..and on…
This living, breathing, photosynthesizing succulent at the center of my table has quietly and peacefully overheard the suffering of generations. This week, I am certain it heard the protests and despair rising from nearby Minneapolis.
This wise plant holds space for the grief of generations; it makes space for overheard emotions, for fear, for sorrow, for hopelessness. It says nothing in response. Yet, looking at its green branches in the glistening sunlight today, I hear it whisper: the suffering of today has been felt before. It will be felt again. But with it, do not forget how much goodness your cries can bring. I have seen equal rights fought for and won. I have seen lives lost and created. I have heard people yell about the collapse of society and I have seen them rebuild it. I have seen anger and hatred as I see today, but I have also seen boundless love.
This schlumbergera is trying to teach me something profound. It does not hate, does not display favoritism. It would sit peacefully in the sun at the table of a family of US-born Americans just the same as it would a family of immigrants, a family of Christians or a family of Jews. The schlumbergera would not turn away someone in its presence simply because they are different or unknown. It would sit, silently sharing its company, hoping to remind those around it that nature has an intrinsic unity to it, as do we. Nature is interconnected, not separate. Nature has no favorites. Nature has not hatred, no evil, no refusal of experience. Nature is life. It breathes; it witnesses; it connects, and it offers us our lives through its gift of oxygen.
With our next breath in, let us be calmly reminded that nature gives us our life- unselfishly, unbiased, without discrimination. The succulent knows the pain we feel will pass, but it also knows it will return repeatedly until the day we are able to breathe peacefully alongside nature and each other, in equitable and equanimous glory.
I hope our words and our actions can bring peace.
Fondly,Courtney
©️ CB2026
PS. On a much more selfish and separate note, yesterday was a scan day for this devious brain. Fortunately, brain has been behaving and all is stable. Phew! Taking a big sigh of relief for the next four months until we get to do it all again.