Tag Archives: forest

Just a bit of light

Light filtering, in a forest mostly dark and deep yet it finds a way, awakening the forest floor and a few ferns healthy and fortunate enough to root atop a rock, claiming their own kingdom.

Sometimes we have to own our own kingdom. We have to dive down deep into a rock or the most unkind place without soil, without warmth, and reach up through it all to overcome, so that the light can hit us.

Sometimes we have to have shallow roots and lightly dusted snow to refresh our memory of spring and the warmer days to follow. Our roots shallow so that we can survive knowing that it is all temporary any way.

But I want deep roots, entangled and nurtured by my fellow green nation friends. I want to be held and supported. I want to be strong for others. I want to be a part of a network, not just a tribe but a kingdom.

I want more than just a bit of light.

She

She’s gold, noticeable in the sunlight, a contrast to all that is white, brown, green and gray of winter.

Her trunk angled toward the warmth, her only concession to what is expected.

She renews by slowly shedding what no longer meets her needs. Her bark peels away in gold, tan, brown, their ends hanging, curling back up to the sky or just limp gathering ice from the cold wind, both rough and smooth.

Her distinctiveness is her gift to the forest for without the gold, the shine, the curl, all would be uniform and tidy.

Her beauty, her power comes from within. She is authentic.

Because I care

Young branches heavy with snow, protected and nurtured, exposed just enough to feel the warmth of the sun. Community surrounding and encouraging them to grow, to reach, to become.

Winter’s chill, darkness of sleep and lazy shadows meandering through the forest bringing armor to the little ones.

My elders have long left this earth but I remember the community and when I see these young trees I too want to wrap them in snow and tuck them in for the night.

I want to protect them and keep them from making the same mistakes I made, embark well-meaning words of caution learned from life’s lessons. Don’t pay too much for a house, always save money, give when you have the chance. Always under bake chocolate chip cookies and keep plenty of sand on hand in the winter when the freezing rain washes the snow from your driveway and you are left with pure ice.

I will always be a mom, not just to my children and grand children but to everyone because I care. I will teach, and nurture, until my last breath is taken away and I leave this earth for good.

I want to want to be here

I am but a tree beside the road. Placed atop a small mound, my lower trunk bends from the years of giving, of responding. My roots are not fully covered by the ground now frozen, my tips exposed.

I want some nice person to come by and cover my roots with rich soil, warm, cover me so that I will stay here by the side of the road. I want to stay and grow. I want to become like the tree across the road, big, old, wise, branches brown and strong. Leaves that turn bright orange or burnt red. Shade that cools and protects. I want to stay to become the tree across the road. Because I know I can.

But now I sit, roots exposed, cold. Wanting and wanting to be moved, or changed. Knowing that some day the change will come. Spring will be here. The ground will thaw.

And I will become.

The Invitation

I invite life. When I invite life I choose to begin my journey home. When I invite life I am part of the invitation. LIFE is an invitation. It’s a great big homeopathic remedy for oneness. All I meet. All I experience. All of it is a remedy, an invitation to bring me to balance.

In balance I walk to oneness.

I choose life. Life is not stagnant. When I choose life, I choose to be dynamic. I choose to be ever present. When I choose life, I am not stuck in the past reflecting on some moment or experience. Choosing life I am not in the future, projecting a thought or planning a desired outcome. Outcomes are irrelevant. When I choose life, I choose to live.

I choose life not time.