Nature is wise. I walk amidst her splendor feeling isolated and apart, a separated "other" tangled in thought and perception, tangled in "me". Then I look out at the breathtaking brilliance that I am a part of. Flowers litter the ground, a wind blows and the trees sway in response, a bird calls and mosquitos lurch. For a moment there is no "other". The wind is breathing this breath, the ground supporting this step, life is arising in all its multiplicity and returning in singularity...a single breath, that is All. And I am home.
Yes, I know it doesn't look like much. It was only about 5 inches in diameter and 8 feet tall. The root ball was no more than 3 feet deep. But it was a sweet red-bud tree that we planted the year Bodhi was born, his placenta was buried in it's roots and like many of the trees in our neighborhood, it died (see this post to understand why) . I can't say that I mourned its death in a tangible way, rather it produced in me a sort of unnameable melancholy. I am a woman who loves the spring. I nearly live for it. When the first signs of life emerge like a haze of hope, I drink in green with the passion of a desert crawling woman sipping at an oasis. I gorge. This year has been hard. Our neighborhood isn't leafing out in native splendor, instead the tired trees seem to begrudge the effort, only offering a tender shoot or bud occasionally. The north side of many trees appear to have given up all together, too tired after a long winter...
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