“This is the nature of the psychic tree: it grows, it gives, it is used up, it leaves its seed for new; it loves us. Such is the Life/Death/Life mystery.
It is a pattern, an ancient one from before water, before light, an unwavering one. Once we learn these cycles and their symbolic representations, be they of pear, of tree, of orchard (…), we can count on them to repeat themselves over and over again, in the same cycle and in the same manner.

The pattern is this: In all dying there is uselessness that becomes useful as we pick through it all.
What knowing we will come to reveals itself as we go along.

In all living kind, loss brings a full gain. Our work is to interpret this Life/Death/Life cycle, to live it as gracefully as we know how, to howl like a mad dog when we cannot—and go on, for ahead lies the loving underworld family of the psyche that will embrace and assist us.”