Tu B’Shevat is called the New Year of the Trees, yet the mystery of this day is not about what we see above the soil , it is about what is moving beneath it.
At this time of year, trees appear still, even dormant. Yet deep within, the sap begins to rise. Life stirs before leaves appear. Renewal happens in the unseen.
This is the teaching of Tu B’Shevat for the soul.
The Tree of Life is not only in the earth — it is the template of our own being. Our roots are our past, our ancestry, our wounds, our joys, the seasons we have endured. Our trunk is the strength we have built through experience. Our branches are the paths we have taken, the relationships we have formed, the ways we have reached toward light. Our fruit is the love and wisdom we offer the world.
On this day, we are invited not to rush toward future blossoms, but to honor the whole tree we already are.
My own experience of Tu B’Shevat is the feeling of sap rising in my inner Tree of Life as remembrance. A quiet honoring of the entire journey that has brought me here: the joy and the sorrow, the expansions and the losses, the openings and the times of winter. Nothing was wasted. Every season became nourishment.
And in this remembering, I recognize that a sacred marriage has taken place within me.
The places that once felt separate — spirit and body, longing and fulfillment, grief and gratitude, feminine and masculine currents — have softened into one living presence. The inner split has given way to a deeper wholeness. Like a tree whose roots and branches are held by the same life, I feel my past and present no longer in conflict, but woven.
This is the activation of the inner Tree of Life template: when we no longer resist our story, but allow every ring of growth to become strength.
Tu B’Shevat teaches that awakening is not an escape from our life, it is the full inhabiting of it. The sap rises when the tree accepts its whole form. Our spiritual life ripens when we bless the entire journey.
The new year of the trees is the new year of integration.
May we trust the unseen movement within us. May we honor our roots. May we stand in the dignity of the tree we have become. And may the sap of Divine Life continue to rise through us, carrying remembrance, reconciliation, and quiet joy.
Ahava,
Ana Otero
Tu B’Shevat blessings!
