Lessons from a lime tree and the wisdom of in-between places
Today I'm called to share a story that speaks to beginnings disguised as endings - the uncomfortable space between what was and what has not yet fully arrived. Invitation to grab a cozy cup of something delicious and imagine reading this beneath your favorite tree!
Years ago, in the midst of a slow-burning dark night of the soul, I walked away from a path I once believed would carry me through life. Walking away felt like setting fire to the village I thought I was supposed to grow old with - the grief was immense.
Without that familiar container, I couldn't seem to find solid ground within myself…I felt disoriented and aching for something steady to hold me while I came apart. So in an attempt to sort through these fragmented feelings, I packed my heartbreak into a suitcase and traveled to the place that had always felt like a home away from home - the English countryside.
I found a cottage tucked within mossy, rolling hills softened by mist and time -dotted with slow moving sheep and ancient stone walls. The air smelled like damp earth, firewood, and something hushed and holy.
The silence here didn't ask anything of me. No roles to perform. No pieces to hold together. And so nestled within the quaint predictability of this emerald heartland, I let myself unravel.
Over the next few weeks here, while there weren't shooting star moments of clarity or grandiose proclamations of THIS IS WHO I AM NOW! - I did notice a slooooow, steady thaw from within, like the first ripples of river remembering how to move after a long winter.
So when it was time to return to California to begin the first year of my herbalism apprenticeship, while emotional pain lingered - so did faint flickers of possibility.
On my last night in the English countryside, I wandered into orchards at the local abandoned church grounds. I had passed them many times, yet hadn't gone in. It was golden hour in early autumn, and the orchards were dripping with apples. I paused in awe, noticing how the sun filtered through the leaves in dappled beams, casting everything in a shimmer that felt both sacred and surreal. Time seemed to bend, and I felt like I had stumbled into a threshold between worlds.
A bench beneath a tall tree seemed to call my name…so I sat down and witnessed the golden symphony unfold before me. Here, I felt called to a simple ceremony to honor the last several weeks - an oracle song shuffle, a practice I learned from my friend Rochelle.
The invitation is to enter a space of prayer inwardly—to ask a question from your heart, open up your music, and hit shuffle. The song that shows up is meant to reflect a meaningful, oracular message in response to your question, whether in lyrics, melody, or both.
I closed my eyes and connected with the land within and around me before speaking into the canopy above, “How can I welcome more love into my life amidst this heartbreak? How to grow forward from here?”
I opened up Spotify and pressed shuffle on the 5,000+ songs in my music library…and “The Lime Tree” by Trevor Hall started to play.
It took a while for you to find me
But I was hiding in the lime tree
Above the city in the rain cloud
I poked a hole and watched it drain out
Emotion bubbled up within me as I let the song wash away the weight of the past several months. It also wasn't lost on me that I felt nestled (maybe even hidden!) beneath this tree.
As the sun slipped further towards the hills, I finally stood, feeling more in my body than I had in months. Just as I was about to walk away, something caught my eye - a small sign posted at the base of the tree. It read:
HISTORICAL LIME TREE
My jaw dropped. A lime tree? I had always thought lime trees bore citrus fruit. I touched the bark in wide-eyed awe and stayed with the lime tree until the sun fully set behind the horizon.
Fast forward four days: I was back in California, beginning the first day of my herbalism apprenticeship. We gathered in a circle, and our teacher welcomed us with a cup of tea. She told us that she always began the apprenticeship with this particular plant because of its gentle, heart-softening nature. It's known, she said, for helping to melt anxiety, soothe nerves, and wrap the heart in the kind of comfort you'd find in a wise and loving grandmother's lap.
I took a slow sip. The flavor was light, floral, earthy. Something in me sighed with recognition, even before she spoke the name.
“This is Linden,” she said. “In the UK, it's known as the Lime Tree.”
I nearly dropped my cup.
The Lime Tree had followed me home.
Within this experience, the Linden/Lime Tree met me in the messy space between becomings. That liminal threshold between what was and what will be.
In ecology, there's a concept called ecotones: thresholds where two distinct ecosystems meet and intermingle. The edge of forest opening into meadow. The place where river merges into sea, where mountain sighs into sky. These are not rigid boundaries - they are living bridges.
Ecotones hold tension and transformation, and they are among the most biodiverse, generative places on Earth.
I traveled halfway across the world to be with a place that felt like my home away from home. But what I discovered - what the Lime Tree reminded me - is that belonging is bigger than place. It breathes in the spaces where longing meets land, where heartbreak meets stillness, where prayer meets song.
I had sought sanctuary in a place I loved, and yet what I found was not out in the world, but deep within my heart. An inner ecotone, the meeting place between the self I had outgrown and the self still unfolding.
The Lime Tree didn't mark an ending or a beginning but rather, a middle, an invitation to stay awhile in the emergent in-between, not as an inconvenient waiting point, but a destination in itself.
This ecology of thresholds, of inner ecotones, inspired my upcoming offering:
Home Away From Home: Bridge the Worlds Within You
If you're yearning to meet yourself at the edge of what was and what will be and to deepen intimacy with the expressions of Earth and Self emerging to meet you here, I invite you to learn more and sign up here. We begin May 3rd.
With love,
Madeline