Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
— by David Wagoner, reproduced in David Whyte’s book, The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America, p. 261-2.
When I was a child, I named the trees around our various houses ((One year we had four in three states. Sequentially, not simultaneously.)) and had a ritual of walking to each of them and saying hello. In fourth grade I wanted to be a dryad. I wrote something for school in which the main character was a dryad. I don’t remember anything about the plot, but I do remember my teacher marking off points because, he commented, you cannot just make up words like “dryad.” ((In studying library and information science, I have learned it will actually get you cited a lot if you make up new words.)) I tried to explain to no avail, and remember this moment clearly—a snapshot of impotent frustration and rage.
Since I began working as electronic resources cataloger at Davis Library on January 11 of this year, I have crossed McCorkle Place nearly every work day. Here is a description of McCorkle Place from a June 18, 2008 UNC tree and foundation plant evaluation of the space:
Over 680 taxa were cataloged. The number reflects the building foundation shrubs and small trees. However, the essence of McCorkle resides in the splendid diversity of noble trees anchored by the Quercus alba, white oak, with 88% (22/25) rated “high” and three “moderate”. These white oaks may parallel in age those on Polk Place. The exciting aspect is the exceedingly vibrant health of these trees. Canopies were full and dense, foliage saturated blue-green, leaves plump and oversized, bark and trunks without wounds and abrasions.
At least 15 Quercus taxa were identified at McCorkle. In fact, the genus constitutes 54% of the total trees. The three Quercus michauxii (could be Q. montana), swamp chestnut oak, are magnificent. …
…McCorkle should never be cluttered with small-stature trees. The great boles of the noble trees, the canopies providing cooling shade, architectural winter silhouettes, subtle to riotous fall colors, early fresh green from the Liriodendron to the mouse-ear-gray and -pink of the Quercus alba…Heaven-sent. McCorkle only needs tweaking.
All of that and it’s the cement-filled Davie Poplar that gets everybody’s attention.
I consider mindfully walking through this space to be part of my spiritual practice. Of course, some days I miss it completely because I am trying to explain things to a maladaptive introject or planning my work tasks for the day. But most days I am silently saying hello to the trees, thanking them for their lush shade, and feeling the places in the brick path where their roots create subtle bumps.
Family portrait
In April, there were many “small-stature trees.” They sprang up where the large-stature trees had dropped their acorns. I’m not sure what was done to them, but it wasn’t friendly, because the areas beneath the trees were soon covered in neat, clean mulch with no fresh green popping through.
Looking out at the big wide world
Over time names have come into my head for some of the trees. One is Jonah. My favorite is Dancer, the “mom” in the above family portrait. I was slightly horrified on Monday to come upon her surrounded by caution tape, one of her limbs cut into pieces on the ground beneath her. Her large lower limb ((the one on which a barred owl perched and stared me down while being pecked by mockingbirds)) now has a scar from this higher limb’s fall.
Jonah's foot
There are certain things that come up time and again in my own personal mythologizing (or psychologizing), and thus my dreams, my art, and my words. Trees are one of them, which is not surprising given the richness of tree symbolism across world cultures. It is time for me to begin writing about these symbols and themes in a more organized manner than I have in the past, so this may be the first in a series of personal mythology posts. We’ll see. ((I have taken to saying this a lot in the past year, usually with a smile, and always thinking about the linked story.))
At any rate, two lovely tree-related things that have nothing to do with me except that I’ve purchased them:
The Night Life of Trees
Book: The Night Life of Trees by Bhajju Shyam, Durga Bai and Ram Singh Urveti
Intricately drawn visions of trees fill the pages of this sumptuous book of art and folklore from the Gond tribe in central India. In Gond belief, trees stand in the middle of life, and the spirit of many things lie in them. They are busy all day, giving shade and support and shelter and food to all. Only when night falls can they find rest for themselves, and then, under quiet dark skies, the spirits that live in them are revealed. Recreated from original art by Ram Singh Urveti, Bhajju Shyam and Durga Bai, three of the finest living artists of the Gond tradition, The Night Life of Trees is a tribute to the majesty of trees, and to old ways of relating to the natural world. Each painting is accompanied by its own poetic tale, myth or lore – narrated by the artists themselves recreating the familiarity and awe with which the Gond people view the cosmos.
Necklace: Tree of Life pendant from ccvalenzo on etsy. The shop carries the same tree image on pendants of different shapes and colors. I’m very tempted to pick up a black and white one.
Tree of Life pendant