Tree wisdom

                                                It’s equinox.

                                                Twelve hours of light.

                                                Twelve hours of darkness.

                                                Everything should be in perfect balance?

                                                Shouldn’t it?

                            Yet, there is energy about that roams, hungry.

                                                Searching…

                   This where smart birds migrate.

                  And I see why, for many reasons. Last night was cold.

Oh, so cold.

It's cold, tonight, as well. But I got smarter, and placed a blanket over my tent.

But the stars were so beautiful.

As they are tonight. Crystal clear. 

I moved my tent closer to the house, under the crab apple tree to protect myself from the wind, and the rain.

      And it was not without some sadness, as I had made my previous spot, my sacred space. 

                    But now, here too, is also sacred. 

                The tree seemed to like me under it, like an old friend that had always been there, watching, silent, kind, steady.

          It whispered soft lullaby’s, and the ground seemed to say hello.

         Sometimes I hear a plop, as a crap apple falls and hits my tent, or the ground. This tree has been here as long or longer than myself.

      And for all these years, it has never stopped being a crab apple tree. Each year I know that if it doesn’t frost, blossoms will arrive in springtime, they will appear, as if by magic. Armfuls of soft, pink flowers, bringing with them butterflies, hummingbirds, and the abundant hum of bees.

                And now, it’s full of orange crab  apples, and glowing leaves.

                Sleeping under it, it has provided shelter. And under me, I know its roots run deep.

                Watching its beautiful leaves through the mesh screen of my tent makes me feel like I’m in some cathedral, looking at stained glass painting. But more vivid, and living.

                Here songs of saints are uttered, whispered on wing, and wind.

                Who can here this chant?

                Transpose the language of the trees into text so that we may all be in communion together?

                I wonder if I slept under each and every tree in my yard, if perhaps, they would impart their tree wisdom to me, and their unique perspective. As we ponder, and appreciate each other.

                Maybe that should be my life mission, to find the most ancient trees, and sit beneath them.

                And they would tell me the poetry of their beingness and we both understand one another, better.

                The wisdom of a tree. It’s wordless, beauty, though it sings gently when the wind kisses it.

                Oh to be a tree, must in away, be a paradise.

                And a sadness.

                For a tree is valuable, because it stays right where it is planted.

                It never leaves its post.

                And you can’t tell if it ever sleeps.

                Do trees sleep?

                Do they wake?

                In winter, do trees feel the cold?

                Do they feel sorrow when the frost touches their leaves?

                Or do they smile, as they blush orange, and red, and yellow, and take on the gown of winter, and of gray, and of cold, with a solemn, regal, sovereign knowingness.

                They are a tree, and nothing can beak their form.

                Unless an ax is wielded.

                Or their wood harvested.

                Yet, still they are a tree.

                They are made of wood, and water, and wind, and soil, and stardust.

                To be a tree, and then if by chance, used for heat, then they are fire, and then dust, and a phoenix of the air.

                To be reborn as earth.

                And so the earth and trees.

                The trees, and the earth.

                To be as solid, and yielding, and beautiful as a tree.

                To know that coded inside me is this tree-soul, my own knowing.

                That no matter what passes, or words that are said, or what good, or bad my eyes have seen.

                I am still.

                And in this space, where I am steady though the seasons come, and the rain, and the wind, and the weather dances.

                I am fixed to the soil, and my branches reach to the sky.

                People may take shade, and or pass by. Birds will tell me their secrets.

                And hopefully my roots go deep, into the kingdom invisible, anchored in my knowing, where I am still---and hear the secrets whispered in the earth of everything that has passed, and gone, and of man’s toil, and reaching.

                Would we were more like these sentinels.

                Would, we were more like the living wood.

                The sequoia trees of soul, old, and wise---giving oxygen, and life, and a house for birds.

                Never has a tree offered me advice, nor told me any wrong.

                Yet nothing is more profound, then the message it teaches, in its knowing.

                Even as I sit in my tent, and write this, under my own tree, I am a little too close to the house, and often I can hear loud voices, and I want to find another spot, away from windows, and noise.

                Yet, has this tree ever packed up its roots, moved? Has it ever said it was tired of the people it sheltered, or resisted its place.

                No.

                It grew where God planted it, and beautifully.

                Growing, and perfect.

                If such forest were to follow my angst, we’d have some places full of vegetations, and other places that had nothing growing.

                And if some trees complained, or withdrew their branches from those who we didn’t think deserved shade, the whole world would be in flux. Tress would be darting here and there.

                We wouldn’t have houses made from wood.

                Because they’d never let us catch them.

                Perhaps, plants are the most intelligent being on this planet. Because they live in a state of perfect, growing, giving, stillness.

                Speaking through color, and vibrations, and eating water, and light, and soil, as their food.

                Oh, tree.

                Maybe if I sleep underneath you long enough, I may know your wisdom.

                And my own heart will always be fixed, and offer shelter and wisdom, just by keeping in tune with that invisible soil of Gods.

                Rooted to heaven and earth simultaneously.

                Teach me, dear tree.

                How you be.