Each morning I rise and after a time come to this window that looks out on the ridge, rising bushes and a redwood tree. The branches were pruned to a foot above deck level a couple of months ago but now rise higher and higher each day, light green new sprouts delicate in this soft, morning fog light. I know there’s a heat wave elsewhere but here it’s summer Bay area cool and my eyes dance in the lightness of ever-changing and nourishing light.
Today I attended a dharma talk in Point Reyes Station. Susan Moon continued the theme of trees by speaking of a favorite childhood tree, and talking about famous trees in history, so the tallest, biggest, oldest. I learned that wood stores carbon so the wood lining the church windows and walls, the pews, the piano, all help with climate change. Wood products store carbon for life. No wonder I love wood so, no matter what its form.
We divided into threes to talk about how our childhoods were affected by either a personal tree or a troupe of them.
I spoke about the tree I climbed up into as a child to sit on top of the world feeling embraced. I also spoke of the Redwood tree that reached out to me to stroke my back with a branch when, as an adult, I was crying. Then, I remembered back to when we lived on the Mississippi River, and I walked in what I perceived of as my own personal forest. I was around ten.
One man spoke of raking leaves as a child. It was a meditation and even as he spoke, I felt a comforting sweep, the rhythm of breath surrendering to a task. We bonded in sharing our memories of trees.
More observant now, receptive, we looked outside and noticed that trees were looking into the room, and even though rooted, were swaying in the wind. We walked out grateful for all that trees give: oxygen, witnessing, shade, texture, variety, food, and emotional support.
The fog offers mist to thoughts and skin.
Today I met with a friend who read my latest book “Airing Out the Fairy Tale” straight through, and now reads it again, pausing at each line, pausing and meditating.
She’s not the first to say that is her experience, which I find gratifying as the book is meant to be a book of meditation, not just search, and even what might be perceived as privilege to venture.
Grateful, I light a candle and sit in the flickering light of support and trust. Asking, we receive, and this I’m continually shown and believe.
There is so much love, beauty, compassion, and connection in this world that it comforts, exhilarates, and lifts me. I’ve seen a multitude of positive changes in my lifetime. I focus there.
I wake this morning, rested and calm, rise and see the decks and yard are wet with mist from fog. I feed Tiger and Bella, make a cup of coffee and take that first, fragrant sip. Interdependence flows through me as I savor all that is required to partake in that wakening sip.
I read Ilhan Omar’s response to Trump..
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
-Maya Angelou
Yes, still, like air, we’ll rise, and yet, our nervous system are branched and twined like the roots of a tree. Mine feel a little shaky this morning. How is anyone allowed to spout hate as he does, and why does he want to?
“Shiver my timbers” by Popeye the Sailor Man comes to mind. It’s used to express “shock, surprise, or annoyance”. It’s not enough to say my timbers are shaking this morning as I try to balance knowing love, love, love, is the answer and the only way to survive and thrive, and yes, “still, like air”, we rise.
I’m with this photo by Stefan Laeng, an amazing leader of Sensory Awareness.
You can learn more about Stefan here.
My brother would have been 66 today. I sit with that. I was three though felt quite mature when my brother came home from the hospital. My dad and I shared fun times as we waited. He washed my hair outside with a hose as I stood in our tiny inflatable swimming pool. It was July in Des Moines, Iowa, and hot and humid. Cleansing outside made sense, but the neighboring mothers were in awe as they saw how my father creatively cared for me. Memories flood in as impermanence waves a multi-colored flag, not the white flag of surrender but a patchwork quilt.
I come to these words by Cheri Huber: Conditioning includes amazingly elaborate systems to keep us from facing the simple fact of life: we are not in control.
We want to believe we have control and I do believe we share connections that allow us to weave and sew a quilt to comfort and nourish our needs.
The world is so rich. When you have an hour and a half, I suggest you watch this. Anna Breytenback speaks at Findhorn about how she communicated with an angry Black Leopard named Diablo who changed when she listened to him and explained that he needed to be named as he truly was: Spirit.
The sky is soft this morning, the fog tender. I am tender. Perhaps it is that my mother would have been 92 today. I feel her here.
I look up meanings of the word tender since I feel a tiny boat chugging in my heart, softly content to create a gentle wake, a simple hum.
Tender can mean to offer something. It can be a little boat or a boat that attends to other boats. I suppose we’re all boats in our own way, floating along, separately or in a flotilla, alone, and not, connected in an ocean of air.
Again this morning I learn of a death. A good friend’s mother passed, and yet in preparation the family has been gathering sweetness and shared memories. I see a bouquet of hearts, a rainbow in the tears.
I’m with this softness in my heart, like a balloon, or parachute, or maybe an Angel’s Trumpet flower. Maybe it’s simply a pool open to offering what comes to me today, soft as petals falling, and trumpets calling.
I’m reminded now that at my friend’s house high on a hill overlooking San Francisco bay that various neighbors go out on their decks and blow trumpets at sunset. It’s like a call of birds, each one in a certain order.
There are so many ways to honor passage, so many ways to stir our insides with the nourishing taste of love and care. This morning for me, peace stirs the air I share.
Yesterday in the Sensory Awareness workshop one person asked: “What’s the difference between being grounded and feeling the ground?“
I’ve been sitting with that and have come to understand that the point is unity. Unity is a place of grace.
I was at the vet early this morning with Tiger. He has hurt his ankle and was not pleased to be in a crate going to the vet but we’re home now and all is peace.
Construction is happening next door, and noise will be my friend for the next few weeks, or perhaps a month.
It brings me to unity, unity in myself and with the world. Peace.
Fog and sun balance on the ridge. I feel balanced this morning, grounded. I walked with a friend yesterday afternoon/evening embraced by the trunks of redwoods. We watched the sun set and the nearly full moon move like a ship in the sky.
I read about how we need quiet, silence, how quiet places are being developed where people can pay and be taught how to listen. We’re so bombarded with noise that we’ve forgotten how to listen. I listen now, the only sounds the clicking of my keys when I type, my stomach growling requesting nourishment, and birds. All is still except the slow movement of pink fog. I feel myself pulled on its exploration, its ease. Sometimes it rushes in but this Sunday morning all is quiet.
My brother was born on July 17, so would have been sixty-six in three days. My mother who passed in 2005 would have been 92 on July 16. What is it about birthdays even when the person is gone that strikes a match inside? I’m tender, tender today, tender with ease.
The dharma talk by Jane yesterday was on trees. I’ve always thought I’d like to be a tree, just stand rooted, receiving nutrients and information from the ground and air, receiving the changing air, but after Jane spoke, and we went outside to root, I felt that yes, I like stillness, and I also like movement. I moved my feet up and down and side to side. I’m not a tree.
We came back into the church and divided into groups of three to discuss our relationship with trees.
One woman prefers the city and has no relationship with trees. The other loves to walk barefoot to her cabin in the woods. I shared my love of trees and a time when a tree physically reached out to comfort me.
I was sitting on our front step crying. At Scout-a-rama a few years before, our sons had each received a redwood sprout about six inches tall. Planted in one pot and then a bigger one, these sprouts had continued to grow until one was about six feet tall and next to the step. As I cried, I felt a branch lean in and stroke my back. Empathy from a tree – yes!
It’s why I thought of starting a business where neighbors would gather before a tree is cut. We’ve had to remove about twenty trees from our property over the years. They became diseased and had to go and each time it’s a loss, and certainly a change. Recently we lost an oak to disease. Our other oaks have now been given the equivalent of immunotherapy to boost their resistance so they can fight off the disease. Sometimes I feel the information between them disseminating through their roots. We share relationship, trees and me.
Trees absorb water and like a fountain spray it in the air. When some of our huge pines had to come out, suddenly our basement was flooding with water. We had to put in a French drain. I read that planting trees could solve the problems of climate change, but where I live the fear of fire means people are cutting down trees. As in everything, balance is required.
I was also struck yesterday by Jane’s point that a mango will never grow on an oak tree. That image gives me permission to settle more firmly into the ground I am.
After the talk, Karen, Jane, and I went to Limantour Beach, and saw two seals, and multitudes of pelicans and gulls. As we walked, we heard, though didn’t see, the Snowy Plover that are nesting and protected right now. After awhile, we found a sheltered place in the dunes to sit.
One woman still has her mother’s ashes. Her mother never learned to swim but loved to watch the ocean waves. Where would her ashes find comfort now? It seems a topic of conversation these days – ashes. We decide to do a field trip to Fernwood Cemetery located near where I live. They offer options. Jane thinks she would like a place people could visit. I feel my brother’s ashes are happily galloping in the ocean. I think I want a variety of places but especially that. As much as I think of being a tree, I like fluidity.
Where we sat, a group of children came and played nearby. As I sit here now, aware of grasses and trees, rocks, and sand, life moving through fingers and bones, I pray we protect our children, all children, every child on the planet, in every way we can, and that includes caring for grasses and trees.
In her talk, Jane suggested we each choose a quality we want to manifest right now. My quality is Peace!
