I’m deeply inspired by the Tree of Resilience at Big Bear Meditation Center. From one side, it looks like an ordinary tree, healthy, thriving, just one of many in the forest that surrounds the retreat center. But from another angle you can see the incredible trauma it has endured: lightning, perhaps fire, carving out a hollow large enough for several people to stand inside. And still it lives.
A reminder that resilience often hides in plain sight, and that every being, seen or unseen in their wounds, is worthy of our tender and compassionate heart.