The Larch's Joy

Wintering out of season, mental health and conifers who behave how we think they shouldn't.

Larch needles… Everywhere

Photo by Dorian Baumann on Unsplash

Larchs and tamaracks are relatively new to me. I think I knew of them but never gave them much attention.

That is until we moved to Prince George, BC. We soon befriended a guy who lived on Tamarack St. Soon after we bought a house on Larch St.

And the strangest thing happened. Suddenly larches popped up everywhere! Just like when someone you know buys a Hyundai Tiburon - suddenly everyone has one!

They’re a curious tree to me. And so gorgeous. During springtime, their fresh needles are vibrantly pale. In summer their needles are a unique green, subtly dissimilar from that of their pine and spruce neighbours. Throughout the fall, an undaunted yellow. And during winter… hideous. They stand there naked, gnarly and unashamed. And let’s not forget the gigantic mess they left behind when they shed their needles!

We have a few larches on our street, one of which we can see from several of our windows. While I monitored this one’s progress I asked the palpable:

“Why would a larch drop its needles? It’s coniferous; conifers don’t drop their needles.”

But soon I found myself asking the inverse.

“Why would other conifers hold their needles? Wouldn’t that mean more surface area to catch and hold snow all winter? That seems unnecessary.”

Before you biologists scroll to the comments section to answer this, you should know we were going through some stuff at that time.
The dust was finally starting to settle from a roughly nine-month-long moving and settling process as we transitioned from Ontario to BC.
Amongst all this upheaval, Fernanda was born.
Subsequently, Jordan was entering postpartum depression.
Throughout the process of her diagnosis, I monitored myself for signs of depression.

Though I didn’t know it at the time I was entering the beginnings of an unsettling, purifying and distilling season of my life. There was a low, rumbling sense that God was beginning something… different.
Spoiler alert: it was the beginning of a season where God would take the ingrained thoughts and life patterns upon which I relied and give them a shake to expose their fragility.

In other words, the question I asked without asking was this:

“Why do I hold these things so tightly?
Why don’t I let go of certain things, as important as they may seem?
Why aren’t I more like the larch?”

Tough Stuff

When the going gets tough, the tough stuff often leads us to James 1; I definitely turned here a few times as life got uncomfortable. Here’s an excerpt:

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.

Believers who are poor have something to boast about, for God has honored them. And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field. The hot sun rises and the grass withers; the little flower droops and falls, and its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade away with all of their achievements.

God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.

So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.

Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash

Psalm 139 was becoming a new favourite at the time, putting incredible context to the tough stuff of life:

O Lord, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.

You know when I sit down or stand up.

You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.

You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.

You know everything I do.

You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, Lord.

You go before me and follow me.

You place your hand of blessing on my head.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too great for me to understand!

I can never escape from your Spirit!

I can never get away from your presence!

If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave, you are there.

If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.

I could ask the darkness to hide me
and the light around me to become night—
but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.

To you the night shines as bright as day.

Darkness and light are the same to you.

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!

Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

You saw me before I was born.

Every day of my life was recorded in your book.

Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.

How precious are your thoughts about me, O God.

They cannot be numbered!

I can’t even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!

And when I wake up,
you are still with me!

Did you catch that?

“Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed…” including the coming of our personal autumns, the times for letting go, even how and when we winter.

If Only

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

I’ve caught myself (and many others) playing the “if only“ game. It’s far too easy to think that if we’d thought, acted or spoke differently we could have avoided the place we find ourselves. But I’m not so convinced of that anymore. I will unapologetically dodge the conversation of God’s sovereignty and our free will and simply say that the psalm above seems to undermine “if-only“ thinking, taking us out of the writer’s seat and giving the script back to God.

It’s now very hard for me to play the “if only” game. Conversely, I can now pray “your will be done” with greater clarity.

With all this in mind, I offer you “The Larch’s Joy”.

I wrote this poem in June of 2022 as I was entering roughly a year’s worth of depression. As mentioned, this would be a time of great sifting and refining, a time of letting go.

~

Oh the larch, 
The wisdom in its knowing
Winter's on its way;
To see the season from afar, 
Oh this is wisdom. 
To count it all joy,
Glowing needles on display
Exuberant enters into grave
To know the passing of the frost
And springtime waters at no cost.

The axe head hit me at my root.
Oh my God!
What from hell is this?
If only I 
Had heard its singing 
As it split apart the air;
If only I 
Had seen the evil coming
And listened for its scheming;
If only I
Stood a little stronger;
If only I
Had peeked into
The book of life itself
To see that this was penned;
If only I 
Hadn't prayed for wisdom
Once upon a time. 
If only...

The evergreen with winter's weight
Appears un-phased like mountain base. 
Or is it just a face
For us to think him strong?
Oh the larch,
His wisdom in releasing
That which was his beauty,
That which was his craft
Of painstaking formation.
This letting go,
This counting all joy,
How we thought him 
To be so wrong. 

~

From my deepest self… thank you.

Thank you very much for reading.

I would love to hear from you.

What did this poem do for you?

Where did it take you?

What did you hate?

What sparked wonder? Joy? Confusion?

Don’t be shy!

With much love and gratitude,

Daniel.

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