Test Cycles

I am in a test cycle month this month—a 4/2 cycle month. I woke up on the first day of April in the centre of a test cyclone.

When I’m not in a test cycle myself, it’s easy to talk about test cycles and how to negotiate them because it’s all theoretical, but in the midst of it all, I am really getting an understanding of how much of a test the cycle can be.

On the first day of my 4/2 cycle month, within the first three hours of the working day, I received three consecutive phone calls which were tests within themselves. Taken together, they were almost overwhelming.

I won’t say too much about the personal tests except that in typical test fashion these are situations that I must react to in a timely manner and with integrity, when I would rather just climb back under the duvet and ignore them. But I know that would be the worst action to take in a test cycle.

The test I’m willing to write about is the one around my tree. My tree, which has been a symbol of abundance, a talisman to me over the years I have lived here, has to be taken down. I love this tree. It’s a fig tree, large and fast-growing. It hasn’t seemed to matter how often it’s been pruned, it just bounces back, growing more branches with larger leaves, reaching higher and farther out into the world.

I’ve taken this tree as an example for my life. On many occasions when life seemed as if it were presenting insurmountable problems, and I felt as if I was being pruned, I have thought about the fig tree’s ability to bounce back, and as a result I have shaken out my branches and have gone on.

The news in the first day of my test cycle was at the tree has to be removed. My test is to be philosophical, remembering that all earthly things come to an end. Even tests.