Tree of Life teaches will, growth and life, even when ground falls away.
Misty air hung over the beach like a soft veil the day I visited the Kalaloch Tree of Life, blanketing the Pacific Northwest shoreline in that familiar, gentle stillness that only the Washington coast seems to offer. The sand was cool beneath my feet, scattered with driftwood and pebbles smoothed by time and tide. Each step pulled me deeper into the kind of quiet where your thoughts begin to stretch out like the tide itself.
And then — there it was.
The Tree.
Clinging to the cliff’s edge suspended by a miracle of roots and will. Its base hollowed by erosion, its body split by storms, its foundation seemingly gone, and yet, somehow, still alive.
The Tree of Life.
Not just a name, but a lesson in plain sight.
Its roots arched like open arms, reaching desperately, defiantly, anchoring into whatever fragments they could hold onto. And somehow, that was enough. Enough to keep it alive. Enough to keep it growing. Enough to stand through seasons and storms and salt-laced wind.
And I stood there, quietly taking it in.
But not everyone stayed long.
What surprised me was how many people hurried toward it, snapping photos and then walked away, as if the view had met a checklist or fulfilled their social media post.
They didn’t linger in the mist.
They didn’t slow down.
They didn’t let the beauty of this miracle awaken their own spirit.
We can miss so much in the rush of life.
But when you slow down, when you let your feet move in time with your breath, your heart, the waves, you begin to see it. And you can hear it, all of it.
And I heard this:
Reflections on Life
We are all holding on to something.
Often, we feel like the ground beneath us has given way, a loss, a change, a shift in identity, and we wonder how we’ll keep going.
But just like that tree, we adapt.
We reach out.
We grow in directions we never imagined.
We survive even when the earth beneath us falls apart, because our roots run deeper than we think. And life, somehow, keeps flowing through us when we choose to keep standing.
Reflections on Motherhood
That tree reminded me of motherhood with the constant balancing act, the way we stretch ourselves thin, the way we try to hold everything together when the ground is shifting under our feet. Our children often see our branches, our strength, our shelter. They don’t always see what we’re clinging to in order to keep it all standing.
And like the Tree of Life, we endure. We stand strong.
We root ourselves in love, even when it’s messy and uneven and wild.
Reflections on Business
As an entrepreneur, the Tree is a mirror.
You start out planted and grounded, but over time, the landscape changes. The ground you counted on may wash away. The plans you built may hollow out. What worked last season might not hold anymore.
But what matters isn’t what’s lost.
It’s what you hold onto.
Values, vision, integrity.
Sometimes, the most resilient growth happens not in perfect conditions, but right at the edge of collapse. Right when you think you can’t keep going, you realize, you’re still alive. You’re still reaching. You’re still growing.
So I stood there, in the mist.
Not rushing.
Not photographing.
Just listening.
To the waves.
To the wind.
To the tree.
And growing even without good grounding.
“You don’t need perfect ground to keep growing. Just strong roots, and the will to hold on.” – Patti Jewel
Just Keep Walking. Step with Love. Always forward.
