Thoughts from retreat:
I needed this, to be at the forrest bottom, the creek running beside me. The air has more oxygen here, you can feel it with every in breath. I’m not really dressed for a hike, but I needed to come to the woods to be amongst the ancient wisdom that’s held deep within the trunk of redwoods.
I am sad to see so many downed trees, falling neighbors and it makes me wonder if the trees talk about each other? Do they converse like us?
“Did you hear we just lost Norman the other day?”
“How about Pearl? She was among us forever!”
Do trees grieve?
And if so, does it feel like it feels for us?
Exhausting and relentless?
Regardless, I find myself immersed in loving communion.
What about gossip?
Do trees tell tales on each other?
I would think no. That seems so much outside the realm of trees wisdom. Instead, perhaps, they have a quiet solemnity that communicates their depth at the loss of the fallen, the downed and the fire scarred. I am reminded again there is a great deal we could learn from tress and clear mountain streams.
I find myself here. Like really, this is where I am at my most comfortable best. And I remember, again, this is what I want to do with the rest of my life, wander in giant redwood forests on the sloping hillsides of mountains next to clear running springs. Forever.
I feel such reverence and benevolence amongst redwoods and I cannot explain it. I did not grow up with them. I am only a very itinerant visitor. But I do notice things. For example, unlike many other trees, Redwoods grow in clumps, clusters of giant, massively, tall trees, that, instead of wanting space in relation to their magnitude, and height, they seek to bring those like it closer, and then encircle each other, forming some sort of sacred bonded circle, a family if you will, which we humans can only marvel and wonder at. They just stand there with their deep, rich mahogany bark, and their verdant green leaves reaching directly, without detour, to the heavens above.
They seem to stand tall in their existence and that feels so different than how we humans live our lives, how I live my life. We shrink and scatter, (I shrink and scatter) and hide as if the act of being less than somehow makes us more. The redwoods direct towering seems like a living prayer to me. Or perhaps the trees really are dangling from heaven, weighted on the bottom so that they can remain here longer, for us. A kind of manna from heaven if you will. Perhaps a vestibule of prayer, an opening, a direct line for communion with the Divine. Maybe redwoods are prayers, chartering a direct and simple course by which to communicate our inner most thoughts, and wishes, straight out of our hearts and souls, without delay up that fibrous bark, scattered amidst the leafy green, and without further delay, to whatever deity resides above.
Redwoods take such a small amount in relation to what they give...I know I should learn more from their example. Sure they take from the soil, but they give off oxygen so that other things may grow, and they take their rightful place in the natural order of things, unlike us who demand to be at the top, always taking and with an incessant and unrelenting demand for more. It occurs to me maybe the healers, the Saint Theresas, The gods, The Buddha, Jesus, perhaps that was what they were trying to communicate with words, what the redwoods have understood all along...take less than what you give, be a direct channel for the Divine and be stalwart in your time upon this earth...