Aligning Purpose, Passion and Performance through Coaching
WHAT IS BIRCH CORNER?
The view from Birch Corner at dusk in early spring.
Birch Corner is a place of inspiration on a remote New Hampshire hillside. Two weathered stone walls meet to form a boundary around a grove of trees. The stones were piled in place decades ago by hardy individuals who carved a livelihood out of the dense woods and rocky soil. When the people left, the forest reclaimed the abandoned fields. The birches were among the first growth. Now they are mature trees distinguished by their beautiful bark.
Nearby we have built our home, fulfilling a dream to dwell close to the earth in the rugged hills we love. We are partners in life and work.
Over the years the stand of trees became snarled with a variety of species competing for the light -- not unlike those of us who have lived long enough to become entangled with physical and emotional branches of our own. Since moving onto the land, we have been thinning the grove. We've also been pruning the underbrush from our past.
Today, bathed in the rays of the sun, Birch Corner is a beacon, a place of the heart where our purpose and passion meet. It reminds us that with focus, effort and perseverance, seeds planted in the imagination grow to fruition.
Months after naming Birch Corner, we learned that the symbolic quality of birch trees is "new beginnings, cleansing of the past, vision quests." The wonder grows. What is it that drew us to this bit of earth to begin a new chapter of our life and launch our business? Our hope is that you too will find inspiration at Birch Corner; that through our work together you will reclaim your truth, regain clarity and renew your commitment to live your dreams. May Birch Corner be for you, as it is for us, a place of new beginnings.
...So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It's when I'm weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig's having lashed across it open. I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better. I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birchers.
