Tuesday, June 30, 2009

rainbow

Vermont greeted us with a rainbow. Look look look! I squealed in the small field that sits behind the pizza place that is the only gathering spot in town besides the church. I was talking to Grace, a lover of rainbows who draws them constantly but has seen very few. In fact I have seen very few to match this one. It was complete and perfect. Stripes of every color, bigger than the tiny town, arching over it and the landscape that surrounds it, the landscape that is all trees and grass, the colorful arch says, I AM BEAUTY! In a big rumbling voice. We are all stares. The sun is out and there is misty rain too and clearly it is the perfect combination for the ultimate rainbow. I wonder what people thought before they knew what it was, said Dave. I know what it is, said I. It is GOD! So obviously and clearly that is GOD! It makes you stop and wonder at the beauty of a perfect combination of events which is in fact what this world and all the life on it is! It is like a visual diagram of the perfect meeting of elements and energies that make life! All life! Flowers do the same. Trees do the same. We can find beauty everywhere and in everything and perhaps a good definition of beauty is the perfect meeting of things that create a stunning form. I find it is the spider crawling up the window. In the raindrop on the glass. On the pansies with their rich deep colors and sumptuous shapes. But a rainbow, that perfect, arching over a gorgeous afternoon with the golden light of sun peeking over clouds that are blue with misty gray, THAT is a masterpiece. And though we can find beauty everywhere, we need the masterpieces to knock us off our feet and remind us, hey! You are lucky to be here in this precious moment.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Packing for Vermont

Packing for a long trip is always a challenge. I want to bring everything! But as I go through the piles of clothes for me and my two young daughters, I keep pulling things out and asking, Do I really need this? Does she really need that? Slowly, I am getting it down to the bare essentials. The truth is, we don't really need much. We can be in the same clothes all summer. It's fine to let ourselves get so sick of what we are wearing that we stop really choosing what to put on in the morning and just grab anything that seems fairly clean. And I will be fine with one pad and a few pens. One jacket. In the end it teaches me that I need very little in this life. And the girls pick that up too.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

corn up!

My friend and teacher David Elliott gave me and thirty other people a handful of corn seeds that he cultivated on his land in New Mexico. He also gave each of us a dried leaf of tobacco that he had grown. It was an empowering gesture at the closing ceremony of a three day retreat he held over Memorial Day weekend at his place. At the time I felt excited about receiving this gift but also a little daunted by it. I am just learning to garden and wasn't sure I wanted to tackle corn. How would I use the tobacco? He assured us that this corn would grow easily just about anywhere. You can just hold the tobacco in your hand, he said.

He does everything with a lot of intention so we all knew that these kernels and leaves were holding plenty of love and promise. We talked about gardening a lot that weekend, and about seeds too. It is more than just a metaphor for life, it is life. Since I got back the garden has become a more meaningful place for me to spend my time and energy. I love being out there with my kids, watering, working my compost piles, carefully tending our babies and of course digging in the dirt. I see it as an extension of myself, just the way I see my art and my family as extensions of me. They are part of me, the fruit of my creativity and nurturing and attention but also apart from me with lives of their own. The more I can see it that way in my garden and in my studio and in my house, the more balanced I feel and everything flourishes. It is easy to fall into the traps of believing that my art or my writing is all my creation or that the kids have learned everything from us. But in the garden it is clear that the plants live independently of me. I am their keeper but not their creator. I put the seeds in the ground but the seeds came from somewhere else. And some will thrive and others will not. I have to keep moving them around, trying different things to see what works best under what circumstances. This is very similar to making art. I don't create ideas from scratch, they come from other ideas. And when I write the words (when I'm really cooking) just come through me. I am their keeper. Even the kids. I have to experiment to see what works with them too. I can't fool myself into thinking I am the one responsible for the tantrum or the smile. I am just a custodian of this beautiful soul that I have the awesome responsibility of raising.

I've been holding the tobacco in my hands and it is powerful. I can feel the force of this plant through my skin. I use it to set intentions or to center myself. And the corn is coming up now, beautifully. I planted 12 kernels and there are twelve strong little shoots poking up out of the dirt. I feel so lucky to have them in my garden.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

triptych

A crazy thing happened today while I was meditating. I hope I can describe it in words. I was in a very deep state. So deep I was almost dreaming. I was seeing an image in my mind of a woman outside. She was standing with her arms on the back of a chair that was facing away from her. She began to lean on the chair and it tipped and she lost her balance, almost falling but catching herself. It was a split second of imbalance that coincided exactly with a loud rumbling of thunder and me startling out of my state. The incredible thing was the simultaneity. The woman in my mind lost her balance exactly when the thunder rumbled and I was startled. One thing did not cause another. All three things happened in the one instant, but each event existed in its own layer of reality. I saw all three stacked like a layer cake. What it did was bring to my attention the three layers of reality that exist at any given moment: The physical body, the mind, and all that is outside of the self. The simultaneous triptych event was like a new picture of reality for me. It was a wake up, telling me to pay attention to what is happening in those three realms at any given moment. Cool.

Expanding

I realize, right now, that I need to expand the way I think about this blog. For some reason, when I started it I felt it needed to be more thoughtful or well written than your average blog. I wanted it to be more than daily musings. But as I read more blogs I realize that is what a blog is and I like reading what other people are thinking about. It is mere musing and it can be amusing! So from now I give myself permission to write whatever comes to mind in this space and not to limit it to "tree related" because in truth, everything I do is related to everything I do. I still love the title "I am a tree" and I feel more and more that I am related to the trees. As my awareness of plants grows through my new found love of gardening, my relationship to all plants is blossoming. (Excuse the pun) When I walk my daughter to school in the morning, I can hear the flowering bushes at the entrance practically say good morning! And further up the path I pass under a magnificent Live Oak tree that would make a beautiful painting if I could find a canvas large enough. Every day it tells me the same thing as I walk under its enormous branches that tower at least twenty feet above me. I love you is what I say to the tree and it always answers me back.

My original intention with this blog was to post once a week. I wasn't keeping up with that because I was holding the bar too high for the writing. Now that I am letting myself off the hook, I hope to write every week at least!