5 posts tagged “trees”

What she wanted was to return

to the original rainforest

hear water pushing

through the sapwood

and leaves eating light

as she wanted to eat light.

She knew her nature

was to be water, not wood.

She knew there was a grove

of vertical rivers

of roaring waterfall-trees,

and a grove of whirlpool-trees

with vortices she could dive through,

past the hollow years of her life

right back to the roots.

 - Pascale Petit 

via WhiskeyRiver:  http://whiskeyriver.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-she-wanted-what-she-wanted-was-to.html

'Muir spent months at a time wandering the Sierra alone, carrying little more than a blanket, bread and tea as he developed his philosophy of the restorative power of nature on the human spirit.
"Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home," Muir wrote. On another occasion he observed: "Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures.  All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts."'
 - From yesterday's (6-25-08) LA Times article on Billy Goat, the man who walks ten months a year in the western wilderness.

  We love this poem very much, primarily because it shows we're not alone in thinking these kinds of things.  Of course we found it at WhiskeyRiver:

CAN YOU IMAGINE?
For example, what the trees do
not only in lightning storms
or the watery dark of a summer's night
or under the white nets of winter
but now, and now, and now - whenever
we're not looking. Surely you can't imagine
they don't dance, from the root up, wishing
to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting
a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly
more shade - surely you can't imagine they just
stand there loving every
minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings
of the years slowly and without a sound
thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,
and then only in its own mood, comes
to visit, surely you can't imagine
patience, and happiness, like that.
- Mary Oliver via http://whiskeyriver.blogspot.com/2008/06/can-you-imagine-for-example-what-trees.html

'Just below the heart chakra is a tiny lotus of eight petals, the Anandakanda Lotus, within which is the "celestial wishing tree" from the Heaven of Indra, the Kalpataru.  This magic tree, in front of which is a jeweled altar, is said to hold the deepest wishes of the heart - not what we think we want, but the deeper longing of the soul within.  It is believed that when we truly wish upon this tree, and release those wishes, the Kalpataru bestows even more than is desired, leading to freedom (moksa).'
 - From the wonderful Wheels of Life, A User's Guide to the Chakra System by Anodea Judith, Ph.D.

"You will find something more in woods than in books.
Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters."
 - Saint Bernard (1090-1153)

"Don't forget your roots,
but also don't rot..."
 - No Doubt