Winter’s serene time and space has left me open and in-tune to the minute changes, nuances, and majesty of Spring’s unfolding. Day by day wonders are absorbed on a soul level. There is a deep comprehension of all the powerful growth that the earth’s veins are sprouting forth.
It is felt, it is known, it is heard, it is experienced.
“The peace and beauty of a spring day had descended upon the earth like a benediction. ” – Kate Chopin
“When spring comes the grass grows by itself. ” – Tao Te Ching
“It is always quietly thrilling to find yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before.” -Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life
This morning’s tree song was mesmerizing. Their movement and expression held me. Swaying, bending, rustling, growing, being. I hung out with them for a long time, seeing with my heart and feeling with my eyes. Still , I watched through the window as they danced…
Then, as if by magic, I found these words by Hermann Hesse that I’d never read before. He understood the dancing, singing, and wisdom filled trees.
At the end of the words by Hesse is my gallery of trees…
“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farm boy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.
Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.
A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.
When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.
So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”
― Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte
Seeing the beauty of creation in all the wild ones, knowing every life is a gift –
how can you not?
“Your growing antlers,’ Bambi continued, ‘are proof of your intimate place in the forest, for of all the things that live and grow only the trees and the deer shed their foliage each year and replace it more strongly, more magnificently, in the spring.”
― Felix Salten, Bambi’s Children
In northwest Montana, Spring comes slowly – a gradual awakening, full of fits and starts. Beautiful warmth in the daytime, back to freezing at night. Comfortable transition. Exciting anticipation. The earth waking up, baby critters on the way, red buds on shrubs by the river, cottonwoods showing bright yellow…
Yes! Here Comes The Sun, and I say, “It’s all right!”
The video was made by the safety council in Perth. It speaks eloquently of slowing down, breathing deeply and taking time for life’s exquisite moments.
Living in the woods, our little town proves itself a nearby haven of good food, community, gatherings, parades, celebrations, galleries, farmer’s markets, the Depot, and even night life! It is a sweet, rustic, western, town that provides a warm, lively, hub of activity for locals and visitors alike. For me, the simple life is tremendously enhanced by this small town, so full of unique personality.
A few black and white photographs of Whitefish at night are in the gallery below (slideshow will load below).
“In the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our minority. In the little towns and villages there are no minorities; people are not numerous enough. You must see the world there, perforce. Every man is himself a class; every hour carries its new challenge. When you pass the inn at the end of the village you leave your favourite whimsy behind you; for you will meet no one who can share it. We listen to eloquent speaking, read books and write them, settle all the affairs of the universe…..
― W.B. Yeats, The Celtic Twilight: Faerie and Folklore
Spring’s sweetness is so close! We awaken again to this glorious season of rebirth.
Time again to nourish our true self.
This poem by John O’Donohue eloquently expresses the longings that come with the unfolding of Spring.
Now, I am Impatient….!
Once you start to awaken, no one can ever
claim you again for the old patterns.
Now you realize how precious your time here is.
You are no longer willing to squander your essence on undertakings that do not nourish your true self; your patience grows thin with tired talk and dead language.
You see through the rosters of expectation which promise you safety and the confirmation of your outer identity.
Now you are impatient for growth,
willing to put yourself in the way of change.
You want your work to become an expression of your gift.
You want your relationship to voyage beyond the pallid frontiers to where the danger of transformation dwells.
You want your God to be wild
and to call you to where your destiny awaits.
Living in San Francisco many years ago, I often spent time in Rev. Cecil Williams’ Glide Memorial Church to hear his inspiring message, and to get absorbed in the uplifting voices of the choir. What soaring voices they have! The choir’s immense talent and passion took me for an exhilarating ride on an uplifting wave of gratitude. Those moments brought patches of peace during a difficult time.
Rev. Williams starts his message very quietly, with the words; “listen, listen, listen”…..
long pause.
Just that reminder put me in a quiet, reflective, tuned in space.
There is so much to hear when we listen! The silence. Our inner voice. Guidance. The wind…
True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.
~William Penn
With the same letters of the word LISTEN another word can be formed… SILENT. We must be silent to listen.
Listen to silence…
…listen to the guidance, listen to the breeze, listen to your heartbeat, listen to your heart’s song, listen to nature’s beauty, listen to peace unfolding.
“The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don’t go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep!”
“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farm boy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.
bor. Catch the trade
