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!

Earth Air Fire Water

I am in New Mexico, on a retreat whose theme is "Thriving or surviving?" I am in a beautiful place, surrounded by mountains, evergreens and cactus, rocks and lots of birds. Ravens are raising their young in a nest outside the front door of this palace. I meant place but it is a palace. Perched high up with views that allow me to see the clouds coming up on us. It is a sanctuary, set up to honor and work in harmony with the elements. Precious rainwater is collected and stored in underground tanks. An extensive gray water system and an outhouse for guests conserve more water. The buildings are designed to make the most of the sun's heat and light and various small solar-powered outdoor lights waste no energy. The earth is cultivated with love and food is grown abundantly in a large outdoor garden, a green house and a modest orchard. The air is crisp and clean and the wind blows all the seeds and stuff around so more stuff can grow and baby birds can learn to fly! It is no accident that everything in this place is thriving. It is thoughtfully designed to make the most of the land and what it has to offer. The plants are cultivated with love by very experienced hands and the buildings are kept up with diligence. I am going home today and my heart is bursting with anticipation and the intention to take care of my own garden, and the property that I have the honor of living on. I must admit I have let the garden go a little over the last month or so and it is now in survival mode. The main lesson of the retreat that I took home was "Your garden is a reflection of you!" and it is so true. When the garden is just surviving, chances are that is my mode too. But when it's thriving, look out!

Butterfly Birds Nest

Mother Nature has been very generous with me this week. I don't know if she is egging me on to get back to my drawings instead of playing with words all day, but that is the feeling I get. As I was putting my kids to bed last night I reached up to draw the curtain closed and noticed a butterfly right up against the outside of the screen window. I realized it was dead, trapped in a spider's web. I ran outside to get it, afraid I might forget if I didn't do it right away. It is a pretty common butterfly called a Painted Lady that is mostly orange and brown and black. But the underside is incredible. It has a very loose pattern of regular teardrop shapes that are shiny silver surrounded by bright yellow and orange. The design is elegant and surprising. I never would have discovered the underside if not for the spiders web that was still clinging to the wings and made me inadvertently flip her over as I moved her inside. I am very excited to make a drawing of both sides of her wings.

Then yesterday as I was taking the girls home after some fun at a friend's pool, we were crossing over someone's front lawn on the way to the car and I almost tripped over a bird's nest. It was the first nest I've found, I think in my life. I have another nest that was found on a walk in the woods of Vermont with a friend, but my friend discovered it. This one seemed, like the butterfly, to have been placed in a way that I could not miss it or mistake it for anything other than a gift, meant especially for me. Thank you. Can't wait to start drawing.

Poem

The birds are busy
singing in the dark
their insistent calling
leafing over
the lulling strum
of the freeway

How is it
that they live in trees
sleep on twigs
survive on worms
and sing so pretty?

Hike

Went for a four hour hike with my friend Kimberly in Ojai. Never been to Ojai before. Nice little typical southern California town. We hiked up into a big canyon. It was green, you could say lush in its way. I was following my footsteps. Concentrating on balancing, breathing, moving with a steady rhythm. A tiny paper white Poppy with lavender edges and three faint blue dots in a triangle centered on each petal stood alone beside the well-worn path lined with Sage bushes and Manzanitas celebrating itself. Its delicate colors vibrated against the sandy ochre rocks beneath our trudging feet that were being ground into smaller and smaller pieces, pebbles and finally dust.

We stopped beside a small stream for a rest in the shade. I sat on the trunk of a tree that was growing almost horizontally before stretching straight up again, making a bench with a back rest that swayed a little with my weight. Sometimes nature is so accommodating. I noticed a spider above me that was very still. It was hanging in its web, dangling with the breeze. I looked closer to see that it was dead. I imagined a mother spider who had produced hundreds of babies before giving in to her dying.

On our way back down the mountain, the sun was stronger and beat us down our descent. Another dead bug. This time a large beetle with legs up in the air. What happened to him? Was he simply unable to right himself? Imagine being that close to accidental suicide all your life. It reminded me of a moment a couple of weeks earlier when I was sitting on the porch of my father’s house one evening, with my sister. We heard the loud buzzing of a beetle flying around, banging into the screens while we were talking. A pretty common occurrence there, we didn’t mention it or wonder what it was. Finally, as she was laying on the bench, deep into a story about her daughter, I watched the big black bug come flying toward the lamp standing just east of my sisters head. He made a big slow circle around the lamp and then crashed into the metal lampshade and fell to the ground. My sister wasn’t aware of the tragedy from her head. Before going to bed I checked on him, surprised he was still lying on the floor. He was dead. You keep finding dead bugs, said Kimberly, but I disagree. They keep finding me.

Spring Thing

Spring is amazing this year here in Pasadena. We have had three weeks of nonstop gorgeous weather. I always think of spring in LA as frustratingly short as the cool, more dramatic winter weather gives way to a few warm days and then suddenly the relentless endless hot arrives and I wonder where did spring go? Not this year. I don't know if it's lasting longer or I am just appreciating it more but we've had cool breezy days with sunshine that dare me to wear sandals and warm evenings that make me excited to leave the house. Now that it stays light later we've been eating dinner outside, and since we eat early we get to watch the garden buzzing as it shifts from the late afternoon bright heat to a calm cool dusk. We munch on salad from the garden and watch the butterflies. The avocado tree is exploding. It is covered in little white blossoms and there are hundreds, maybe thousands of bees in its branches. I can't get over how busy it is in my backyard this year. I don't know if it's just a spring thing to feel like everything is new but I really don't think I noticed all the hubbub before.

The Japanese Maple that was hidden behind a dying lemon tree until we took down the old guy now stands like a centerpiece with these incredible delicate pink flowers that are like little treasures in its leaves. And the newly planted citrus are laden with their more obvious and fragrant blossoms. My little apple tree, also newly planted and who I pray for since this is not really the climate for apples, is trying hard to push out some buds. The insects are working overtime too. We see baby lady bugs all over and the bees and the flies and the mosquito catchers and spiders and all the worms in the garden so many worms all toiling away at their jobs, whatever they are. I don't pretend to know what they're doing and when the kids ask we say things like, "Oh they're eating and moving stuff around, just like we do." I just can't believe how lucky I am to live here, to have a big backyard where I can watch this all happen, to have three piles of compost and to grow my own lettuce.