A Burning Bush. My red hibiscus has not only exploded into color, but has seemingly doubled its height in only a few months. Only yesterday it was a toddler struggling to stand up. Now it seems like accelerated puberty has made it shoot through the roof. What were sparse branches before Spring are now gangly limbs. Each extension with flowers has seven or eight other buds ready to share the limelight. 

Like a teenager acquiring new friends, it no longer wants to be seen at the mall with its parent stock. Its network of blossoming new branches is nature’s social media. It’s on fire in the Baja desert. And it’s not talking to me. I’m supposed to listen to it. In any event, it now thinks it’s immortal.

But at some point I have the sheers. I am the pruner. I Am Who Am. Not the bush. I just need to remind myself of that. The Hibiscus will never say it directly, but like all plants it thrives and grows stronger when cut back to consolidate its energy. The same is true of us. Except we are the pruners and the pruned. A little “cut back” goes a long way towards our own flowering . . .  again and again.