I love when an unfinished story finds me at just the right time it seems. After reposting a story from a year ago about connections with the trees I found the one below. Hours later, I discovered why this story found me a year and one day after originally being written.
December 7, 2010
After writing about waking up to love thanks to a ginkgo and Japanese maple tree, I bundled up to take my walk. Only a few blocks from home, I noticed a power line truck, its bucket extended high in the air with a man inside, I assumed a man working on the lines. As I neared, I panicked for I realized the truck and the man were near my tree, the beautiful tree with the heart in its trunk.
Just yesterday, I stopped at a distance to take in the entire tree, to fully notice the branches high above as my tendency is to focus on the heart.
Today I looked at the tree and found half of its side missing. The limbs
nearest the power lines had all been cut. I still don't have the words to fully
express what I felt. I was relieved to find the tree still standing, yet pained
to see half of it gone. I wondered how it felt.Some people would say trees and plants don't feel yet studies of plant growth reveal plants respond to different musical vibrations. Likewise the community of Findhorn, Scotland grew out of what was considered barren rock and sand. As the people who felt called to live there began to relate to the spirits of nature, plants began to grow. This once barren area is now home to an international teaching and learning community.
I personally know trees feel. The month before while walking in the woods, I had placed my face to a tree and heard a scream. I knew in an instant that trees throughout time have held so much for humankind.
This tree on Natchez Trace felt something. This tree felt me.
I climbed the little hillside and placed my hands on the trunk as icy tears filled my eyes. Then I sat down and put my arm around the tree as I would for a friend for that is what trees are to me. They were in many ways my first friends. I played among them in the small wooded area behind my childhood home as well as in the woods at my grandmothers 'on the creek.' I loved climbing the silver maple, magnolia and mimosa trees at my other grandmothers. I was held by tree arms whether I was climbing trees or pretending a small cluster on the rock ledge behind our home was my "house" in the woods.
Throughout time trees have provided arms for me yet here I sat this morning by one of my favorite trees suddenly missing its arms with my arm around it. I sent gratitude and blessing to the tree yet I also held a jumble of shock, sadness and anger. I tried to hold respect for the men doing their work, hoping they appreciated the trees in whose arms they worked.
My insides were further complicated by the fact that I was sitting six feet from a busy street, cars rushing past this moment of intimacy. The critical voice of my father stirred in the deeps wanting to know what I thought I was doing. He also loved trees and often said he wished he could have been a hermit living in the woods. We had much in common yet he would take a condescending tone with me. Suffice it to say this intimacy thing has been personally challenging whether with loved ones or trees in public places.
Yet I was getting better at it because I sat there for quiet some time, recording my experience. I remembered how Peter denied knowing Jesus just prior to the crucifixion out of fear of the consequences. To some this will seem blasphemous, but I thought, 'Am I not betraying the tree and me and denying who I am and it is if I walk past ignoring it out of fear of what others will think?' I pondered how my ignoring the deeper levels of what this tree means to me is really no different from the men who cut the limbs if they ignore their relationship with trees.
I sat until I began to get bone cold. I dreaded the continued walk, knowing I would see sawdust and twigs from other trees. I walked on surprised to find other trees had not been trimmed.
I made the turn, took a deep breath and headed home knowing I might possibly encounter the tree cutter. I've often said to clients that reading self-help books is the easy part compared to living what the book suggests. Now I realize writing a story is easy compared to living what I espouse.
I espouse holding the all of life non-judgmentally yet when I came upon the truck with the workman in the bucket cutting a tree I was put to the test. Witnessing the assault of something I experience as beautiful is hard to see. My insides are stretched holding gratitude and sorrow simultaneously. It was hard to suspend judgment of this man just doing his job.
Hours later I continued to digest my experience. My deep desire is to realize the sacred teachings of the trees.
December 8, 2011
This morning I came upon the story above unposted at my website. Its title "The Woman Who Loved Trees and the Tree Who Loved Her" caught my attention. I read it and sensed I never shared it because my pain and rage were so deep.
Although I had not intended to walk in the morning's cold, I determined I had to visit this tree. The heart tree is on my daily walking route. I most always stop to acknowledge it. Often I feel a circle of loving energy flowing between me and the tree.
On today's walk I kissed the tree and felt the energy. Yet today was different. If you had been driving past, you would have seen my face beaming for I looked up and saw dozens of little arms reaching out from where the limbs were cut. In the twelve months that have passed, the tree has birthed multiple branches from the side that was shaved.
I stood on Natchez Trace smiling ear to ear realizing the tree in its wounded places didn’t stop growing. It actually flourished and grew even more. I had quite possibly been part of this growth through sharing the energy of love and joy over the past year.
What a beautiful, sacred teaching the tree shows me, a lesson in reaching, loving and growing when cut, wounded and pained, of staying open rather than shutting down.
Hurt people and places within and without need the healing energy of love sent their way.
-Dawn! The Good News Muse 9 Dec. 2011
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