From Olive Branch to Tree of Life
On the cusp of my 30th birthday I spent the summer in Paris. I learned on that trip I realized that this coming school year, the year of my 30th birthday, would be my last year in New York. There was something about Paris and my time there that just told me it was time and that I was ready to grow.
While I was in the Louvre, I was inspired by some ancient Greek artwork and ended up going down to the gift shop and buying a ring that I still wear today. It’s a Dionysus band with rings of vines and grapes signifying growth and life. I thought the ring was an apt symbol of the growth and change I wanted to make into a new season of my life. And I still think about that ring and its significance to me every time I think about life transitions.
When I moved to California from the UK in 2020, the ring took on a new significance. I was moving to Sonoma County, wine country, and I thought of this time as a new chapter, new personal growth in a new job in a new home.
In California, I had dedicated my life to an institution that was undergoing stress and change. It was 2020 so every institution was under stress at that time. But more than COVID, the institution was in transition and needed to reinvent itself coming out of COVID for its long-term stability.
Arriving as a virtually unknown in the time of COVID, people were understandably scared and nervous. And you might remember that the world was tense, argumentative, and divided. And some people were just looking for an argument.
As a new leader, I wore that ring thinking about this challenging time as an opportunity to grow. I was also working on creating a “work uniform” so people might focus on the substance of my work more than my appearance…as many women in leadership know all about.
I found a jewelry set I just adored as I was looking for my “uniform” jewelry. It was a silver set of earrings, necklace, and a ring…of an olive branch.
Olive branches are clear metaphors to be used a peace offering and I wanted this symbol in the tense 2020-2021 year of COVID. I wanted to wear that symbol every single day to tell people that whether or not you feel comfortable COVID, agreed or were uncomfortable with the necessary change, that there would always be a place for you and always a place to have dialogue. As imperfect as I am, and certainly was in leadership during the most stressful global pandemic, my intention was to always offer an olive branch, a new opportunity to connect. I do want to work together. I want to belong. I want you to belong. I need to make some difficult decisions here but I don’t want the necessary change to break us.
With COVID thankfully in the rearview mirror, I went to the UK last spring to celebrate my PhD graduation and then popped over to Ireland. Ireland has always held a special place in my heart for its healing and welcoming land and people. Meeting an Irish person, whether in New York, Cambridge, or Uganda, I immediately and always connected to the warm spirit, hilarious sense of humor, and wickedly intelligent sense they have. On this trip, I was going to visit a dear Irish friend who was one of my biggest supporters during the dark days of not just a difficult, but cruel PhD journey. Yeats said it best, “Think where (wo)man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.” I knew Ireland would do me well. And it did not fail. My friend introduced me to people who immediately embraced me; no matter how short the visit, these new friends were so warm and welcoming that I know I will be back to see them and hope they know they are always welcome wherever I find myself on this planet.
On a day with a few hours to myself, walking the streets of Dublin, I found myself looking for new jewelry. Across Ireland, they sell lots of jewelry with so many symbols, meanings, and something about Ireland makes these symbols real. I came across a beautiful set (I’m into sets) of tree of life jewelry. If you’ve been Ireland you know these jewelry sets are all over the place.
I saw this tree of life necklace after long, meaningful conversations, the ones that renew, deepen, and solidify friendship. After moments of superficial yet entertaining television, great meals, walks through the city, laughs that attack you because your friends are just too fun. Pubs with no televisions, no music so all you have to do on a rainy Sunday is have a pint and talk about everything under the planet…and meaningful connect with your own and other’s humanity – their deepest thoughts, most controversial takes, their values, their lives, their losses, their loves. After beautiful coffee shops that give you a delicate and rich piece of chocolate with your coffee. After a beautiful bookshop where the shop attendant walked me patiently through the Irish history section offering me summaries of various history books until I settled on just two..and an Irish novel of course. After dancing the night away until the wee hours in the morning that made you feel alive. After realizing that you felt true freedom dancing and walking the streets late at night because you were in a gay bar, with friends who wouldn’t leave you, so you could just be a person having genuine and simple fun rather than a woman carrying fear because her world confirmed was her that the danger is real and soul crushing. After walking through the brisk cool air along the river with blue skies above. After every lady in the bus wants to make sure you understand why the farmers are striking and ruining the bus route but also complain that they’ve ruined the bus route. Connection. Innocence. Pure joy. Love.
I saw that tree of life and I knew I wanted to live. I was alive in Ireland and I was going to leave it a newly minted doctor starting a new chapter of being alive. Living in harmony. Finding the good, the growth in this world. So I bought the tree of life earrings and necklace.
But when I went home to New Mexico, I didn’t really wear them. I was used to my olive branches. I loved the artistry and beauty of the olive branches.
And as I began my first day of the week in a new position, I looked at my jewelry and saw the tree of life earrings. In that early moment on Monday morning, seeing the tree of life earrings made me realize that I was in my tree of life phase now. I literally laughed out loud at this realization.
I am now in my tree of life era and that it isn’t just something I am trying to will to come true. And it is a chapter that is coming more easily than other chapters somehow. And it occurred to me that I don’t need to wear the olive branch earrings in this new chapter. I actually need to wear the tree of life in this new chapter because in this new chapter I’m not trying to help people navigate a necessary change that some people may not want. I’m not living in the times of COVID in a position where everyone brings their complaints to you and you can’t seem to make anyone happy. In this new chapter, I am working with and for people who want to navigate and make a change. What they needs is to see that they are worthy, and there are great possibilities ahead if they stick with it.
And I feel the same about myself. I am in a new chapter where I don’t have to reconcile how difficult change can be for people and offer the olive branch. In this new chapter I get to help create and support people on a journey into something beautiful ahead that they want, that they need, that will give them fulfilment. And so I put on the necklace with the tree of life. And a ring that is a blessing on one side, and my Oxford graduation ring on the other…Faith and knowledge on my fingers which have illuminated and fulfilled my life.
And then I realized I should take off my olive branch earrings because today I don’t need them. That was a feeling that made me literally laugh out loud. I don’t need to be the olive branch today. Today what I need to be in this chapter with the people I will encounter throughout the day is a vision of a tree of life.
And so I’m sticking with the tree of life for now. The olive branch will always be needed throughout our lives because after all, we’re not perfect and we certainly live in an imperfect world. But I am entering my tree of life chapter. That is who I want to be in this chapter. Because this chapter of my life, of our world, needs dreams of connectedness, of groundedness, of growth, of beauty, of life, of truly be alive.
In this tree of life chapter I’m living right now, it doesn’t feel so difficult, so impossible, such a struggle. It feels like I’m aligned well with the people and my purpose. And I feel motivated, excited, and alive.
A quick note to the reader…as things become extremely busy at this moment for me, I am going to focus on posting every other Wednesday. I think it’s more sustainable for me. But more than that, as I value my readers, it offers them the opportunity to read more well-thought-out pieces that I hope enrich you and make you think…and are maybe worth sharing with others. Thank you for reading and I will keep writing…but biweekly until the end of 2026.
