Trees of Life

I write today for three trees that are gone now, hacked up by men with chainsaws.  I see you fallen ones on the median strip of pavement, your remains chopped into pieces.  I have been holding my breathe for a long while waiting for this day to come.  The day the construction would start in front of my building.  I counted 80 trees-trees for buses- that will be cut down.  Is this a fair exchange?  Is this progress?

I weep for each of your leaves and for the men who are "just doin' my job mam."

Did you three trees know I noticed you?  You will be missed, I promise.  I was aware of your plant medicine for the city, helping to purify the toxic fumes from all the vehicles that passed by you each day.* I could tell you suffered and were not so healthy with all the heat and exhaust coming your way.  You will be missed for your leaves changing colors and for the beauty you brought to this place.  I did think about chaining myself to one of you but frankly, I didn't think I could stomach that much toxicity and noise on the street for long and I knew it wouldn't do any good.  The chainsaws and the men would come anyway and cut you down to the ground.  Men in hard hats and fluorescent colored vests from Star Paving (the faded name on their pickup trucks) did you in today, but really who's to blame?

"Just doin' my job mam...mouths to feed."

The chainsaw sounds again and again, as the hard hat men cut each of your branches, grates on my nerves as it destroys you limb from limb.  I make a small offering to you three trees as the backhoe loader passes me by, may you rest in peace.

Let's pull up more oil for petroleum from the ground and spread it around.

Let's frack some more and see what we can explore.

Let's ignore the indigenous tribes as they stand to protect their land and water from the Dakota Access Pipeline.  Let's pull up more oil for petroleum from the ground and spread it around.

My first thought was to leave this cynical poem as the closing here but I thought better about it after I came upon a few paragraphs from Peter London in his book, Drawing Closer to Nature.  If only we took action with a conscious effort toward the interconnectedness of all life in nature as he describes here:

I bring my ax and saw with me to the tree I have chosen to fell, and lay them down away from the tree.  Then I sit a distance from the tree, where I can see it in its entirety.  I bring its vision into me, like a photographer's camera taking into its body the light of that tree. Something terrible and something wonderful is about to happen.  Leaving my axe and my saw, I approach the tree, walking up to it, touching it, feeling its taut and sinewy trunk, its skin, how it springs from the earth, how its limbs reach for the light, the neighborhood it lives in, the neighbors.

And then he prays for this friend, asking for forgiveness, he makes a medicine wheel around the tree noting the path of the sun and the four directions before he carries out his task. 

***

Some months later, after I post these words, I am reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.  She tells the story of her friend and teacher, indigenous basketmaker, John Pigeon.  He is from a lineage of basket makers from the Potawatomi tribe, she writes: Traditional harvesters recognize the individuality of each tree as a person, a nonhuman forest person. Trees are not taken, but requested.  Respectfully, the cutter explains his purpose and the tree is asked permission for the harvest.  Sometimes the answer is no.  It might be a cue in the surroundings--a vireo nest in the branches, or the bark's adamant resistance to the questioning knife--that suggests a tree is not willing, or it might be the ineffable knowing that turns him away.  If consent is granted, a prayer is made and tobacco is left as a reciprocating gift.  The tree is felled with great care so as not to damage it or others in the fall.  Sometimes a cutter will make a bed of spruce boughs to cushion the landing of the tree.  When they finish, John and his son hoist the log to their shoulders and begin the long walk home.

***For more on trees, their amazing capacity to communicate with one another, their ability to feel and so much more than we comprehend read, The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben.

Salmon Vigil, 1999

In the footnotes to the book, Leap, by Terry Tempest Williams I discovered this prayer. These words were recited as part of an event for the well-being of the salmon and the restoration of the living waters, held at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle, Washington on March 8, 1999. It speaks to the salmon and the sacredness of all waters and life on this earth.  It seems to me fitting to read now as we continue to push for the Dakota Access Pipeline.

We have forgotten who we are.

We have forgotten who we are.

We have alienated ourselves from the unfolding of the cosmos

We have become estranged from the movements of the earth

We have turned our backs on the cycles of life.

We have forgotten who we are.

We have sought only our own security

We have exploited simply for our own ends

We have distorted our knowledge

We have abused our power.

We have forgotten who we are.

Now the forests are dying

And the creatures are disappearing

And humans are despairing.

We have forgotten who we are.

We ask forgiveness

We ask for the gift of remembering

We ask for the strength to change.

We have forgotten who we are.

-U.N. Environmental Sabbath Program

The Bag

I have had a summer practice of going to the Rio Grande river many mornings to start my day before the heat waves of desert afternoons.  It is a short ten minute drive from my place and if lucky I can catch a glimpse of the elephants at the zoo from the vantage point where I park my vehicle.  Love the elephants. Always a big thrill to see these magnificent animals.  My friend Autumn has a fine plan to take these five elephants to the river, but that is a story for another time.  

Body, mind, spirit feels a certain lift moving through the paths in the woods. Especially today when I am a little brain-agitated, I breath deeper with every step.  It is September 16th, a full moon and a lunar eclipse.  I note my beloved cottonwood trees are just starting to turn, soon they will glorify the river with multitudes of magnificent heart-shaped yellowest leaves. It rained last night and so the paths are soft under foot. Everything living seems glad.

Each trip to the shallow river is a journey to a mini-beach.  There is so little water flowing in the spring and summer that the river bed is completely exposed nearly half way across the width at the spot where I frequently enter. Today there are a group of six people and two dogs at the water's edge, they are clearly loving the moment as well.  I take off my shoes and walk barefoot for awhile into the muddy shallows of water.  There are a few birds now, a white shore bird, a couple of ducks; as migration time has just begun.  Only bits of litter spoil the otherwise pristine views of the volcanos to the west and so I have taken to picking up discarded plastic water bottles, old tin cans filled with sand, candy wrappers and such stuff when I go.  It gives me a sense of accomplishment.  Sometimes I remember to bring a bag to carry it out but today I forgot.  I gather up a few things into a pile determined to come back later with a bag to collect it.

But as I was driving home, an odd coincidence, a white plastic shopping bag was literally flying down the street directly towards me.  It had the quality of being on a mission.  Mesmerizing like the ephemeral video of a floating plastic bag in the film, American Beauty, this airy animated object compelled me to brake, get out of the car and grab it before it sailed away. "Right on," I thought, "just what I need". Bag in hand, I turned back to the river's edge and picked up as much trash as it could contain.

Curious wonder. Ask and ye shall receive.

A chance occurrence or something greater?
I like the simple magic of it.

Next day, on my way back again, no kidding, another bag flying down the street in front of me.

The Bird Who Came in Through the Doorway

As I sit in my morning meditation with Rune stones, ancient Nordic symbols, I chant to connect me with all that is alive, I hear the distinct sound of wings flapping.  Not the wings of my canary Piccolo- who is singing golden trills in his cage behind me- but the wings of another bird.  A bird from outside has flown into my urban loft space, through my open door on the third floor. I look up as she lands above us on a black pipe near the ceiling, up about twelve feet on the sprinkler system.  She has perched momentarily, directly over my new painting of Sandhill crane’s wings- which is leaning on an easel. Later, I consider what a miraculous blessing this is for my feathered painting but in the excitement of the moment, I just feel concern for the bird’s safety.

The small brown one flys across the width of the space to another black pipe, pauses above Piccolo, then cruises down the length of the loft over a half wall into the bedroom.  I am completely focused on her presence in my space.  She is moving toward the windows facing south, the direction from where she came in.  But she can’t get out as the windows are closed.  I hate the sound of her failed attempts hitting against the glass.   I enter the room and want to help but fear I will scare her off again in another direction.  She sits on the narrow ledge of the window casing for a bit, no doubt stunned and then hops down to the window sill where she allows me to pick her up. Wild bird in hand, I cannot say for certain if this is a House Sparrow but probably, yes. She is small, sandy brown and sturdy, with a very strong looking beak.  I gently cover her eyes with my hand as I carry her outside.  All of this spans a minute or two; I sit down with her in my hands onto a chair on the balcony. Taking a breath, I lift my fingers from her eyes so that she might see to get her bearings. I let go and she is free again.

Instantly she flys straight out over the balcony railing to the very top of a dead branch on a tree, in a neighbors lot two doors down. I can see her there and she appears to be looking back toward me. It is simply magical to witness her soar with swift speed to the familiarity of the tree. What could she possibly imagine just happened?  

As I gaze at her I notice the space between us is filled with dancing particles of tiny points of light.  They seem to mix with and through everything, sparkling up the air.  More wonder happens as I observe a distinct aura of light above the tops of the trees around where she is perched.  It appears as if there is a brighter band of energy around the edges of all the trees in the field of my heart vision.  Something opened within me when the bird flew off, I was given a brief glimpse into non-ordinary reality.  She gifted me something I cannot explain, a heightened few precious moments and then it was gone. The vision faded but I cannot stop thinking about it.

Reading from Ted Andrews’s book Animal-Speak I find this quote:

“In the beginning of all things, wisdom and knowledge were with the animals; for Tuawa, the One Above, did not speak directly to man.  He sent Animals to tell man that he showed himself through the beasts, and that from them, and from the stars and the sun and the moon, man should learn...for all things speak of Tuawa.” *


Andrew’s says the word “animal” is derived from the Latin word “anima,” meaning soul or breath of life.  The wild in “wild animal” comes from the Anglo-Saxon “wilde,” referring to living free with Nature and not under human control. Surely Ms. Sparrow gave me some of her sparkle, her animate breath of life when she entered my nest for a short while.  I feel connected to all things alive as I process this wonder, I pick a Rune stone: “Ken” which is shaped like an arrow head sideways < and stands for the element of Fire. It represents life giving fire and spiritual creative energy. Gladly, with gratitude, I will paint more feathers today.






*Chief Letako-Lesa of the Pawnees Tribe to Natalie Curtis, circa 1904

Ecology and the Eco-self

Environmental activist and Buddhist scholar, Johanna Macy wrote in 1991, "Among those who are shedding ... old constructs of self, like old skin or a confining shell, is john Seed, director of the Rainforest Information Center in Australia. One day we were walking through the rainforest in New South Wales, where he has his office, and I asked him, 'You talk about the struggle against the lumbering interests and politicians to save the remaining rainforest in Australia. How do you deal with the despair?'
He replied, “I try to remember that it's not me, john Seed, trying to protect the rainforest. Rather, I am part of the rainforest protecting itself. I am that part of the rainforest recently emerged into human thinking." "


I find these words to be so helpful in my own quest to be part of the solution; a profound example of thinking in alignment with the web of life. If we see ourselves as part of the forest, river, landscape, ocean -protecting ourselves from self-destruction- then of course, we will have a much better chance of making compassionate actions. And to take this one step farther, in the same piece, Macy quotes from a letter by a student she calls Michael:

I think of the tree-huggers hugging my trunk, blocking the chain saws with their bodies. I feel their fingers digging into my bark to stop the steel and let me breathe. I hear the bodhisattvas in their rubber boats as they put themselves between the harpoons and me, so I can escape to the depths of the sea. I give thanks for your life and mine, and for life itself. I give thanks for realizing that I too have the powers of the tree-huggers and the bodhisattvas.

Macy is writing about the emergence of the eco-self, a heart- open shift from an egocentric separatist perspective. When I consider my life as intrinsically loving and connected to all that is, then I realize the idea of other is merely a construct.   If there is ever to be a truly healing consciousness on earth, a recognition of this premise, that we are part of the whole not unrelated from other but one witnessing experience, seems fundamental.  

One of my daily practices is to work with Rune stones every morning to help me feel more
connected to the great web of life. The use of rune stones for divination is old, at least from the 3rd century. Each of the 25 stones -Germanic alphabetic letter forms and their sounds- name elements of nature like water and plants as well as abstract constructs like peace and fulfillment.  By speaking them in succession, repeating these archtypal sounds, I create a container of support for my day.  Over time the experience of working with these sounds, their forms and meanings has helped me to resonate with a deeper sense of connection to myself as part of something greater.

In his book The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram theorizes that over the centuries our alphabets lost their original connection to nature -referential letter shapes and sounds.  We became less connected to nature, less of our experience in life evolved with nature through our written words. Add to that the industrialization of civilization, over-population and a well shaken cocktail of greed, war, fracking and monocultures. Over time we have forgotten that hidden wisdom which is the etymology of the runes. If we practice something to remind us of that union now, perhaps we can like john Seed become a part of a more empathetic world-view protecting itself.  Maybe for all the complexity in the world, all the environmental destruction, war and confusion, healing can be as simple as the insight to reconnect ourselves consciously to the greater web of life.