Summer and the Bar Mitzvah Moon

Tree #5 is a dead Lodgepole in the back yard. Its Bark has faded in color to a dull brown and become brittle. Where the Bark has peeled off dead Wood shows traces of Critters that left small trails along its surface. Looking up toward the Crown and the Lead ghost Branches project out, no Needles, no flexibility, like fingers stretched out in pleading. Remember me as I once was.

A long, deep crevice runs up and down the Trunk allowing a glimpse inside. Reminds me of the necropsy on the dead collared Timber Wolf during my Wolf intensive in Ely, Minnesota. Several Januaries ago. The crevice and the biologist’s opening of the Wolf’s thorax and abdomen provided a sight not available in life except under rare circumstances. In both cases the Lodgepole crevice and the Wolf laid open I could imagine galaxies and local clusters whirling in this not meant to be seen space. Inner space, not outer space, the one suggesting the other, by the wonder of life gone from its home on the one hand and the vastness of the universe on the other.

The dead Tree stands where it grew, a corpse remaining in place. Made me wonder about the idea of death itself. We imagine death as a clear and distinct state from life. In terms of agency I suppose it is. But consider the dead tree. Birds rest on it. Woodpeckers eat from it. Squirrels may build a home there. Its roots have begun decomposing, feeding already the living Trees, Grasses, Soil microbes. When it falls, were it to remain in the yard, it would decay slowly while offering homes for Voles, Chipmunks, Rabbits and other Animals.

So death in nature has many phases, all of them useful in some way to other Creatures and Plants. Perhaps death is not so clear and distinct. In Muir Woods there were fallen Coastal Redwoods that will take decades, maybe centuries to complete their death. And throughout those Woods as in the yard here death actively supports life. Is not its enemy but instead its friend.

Does that help us, frail mammals that we are? We can certainly formaldehyde a body, put it in a box and surround that box with cement or even steel vaults. But why? To defeat the natural processes which Elk, Mountain Lion, Aspen, Willow, and Meadows filled with lush Grass not only go through themselves, but need so that others of their kind can survive? We have set ourselves apart from our Mother, rejected her ways, and visited upon her insult after insult. Perhaps the dead Lodgepole can teach us a different, better way.

Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

This is the first entry in my honoring the Tree mussar practice. I will post these as I do them.

My kavanah, my intention, is to enhance my capacity for honoring all things, all Earthlings. Including humans. In this honoring means paying attention, close and uninterrupted attention. Seeing the other for what they exhibit, to imbibe their uniqueness and their interconnectedness. This uniqueness has many names: Buddah nature, soul, highest potential, essence, wholeness, image of God. In seeing the sacred reality of this Aspen I am in turn seeing my own sacredness in the process of seeing the Aspen.

When we first moved here on the Winter Solstice of 2014, this Aspen had no leaves. Tiny shoots of its clones were hidden beneath the Snow cover. But they were there.

Nine and a half years later I went out today, out front since this Tree is in the front. As I walked up to it, I noticed its Trunk’s variation between a smooth gray Bark and a wrinkled black Bark. As if the Tree could not make up its mind. I’m curious now as to the purpose of the two different types of Bark. A Spider and an Ant crawled over both smooth and rough, unconcerned.

My hand found the change in textures though they seemed more graduated with touch. The smooth Bark had some grippiness to it and also contained small raised bumps of the rougher black Bark. When I walked around the Tree, I noticed at its base a large scar, black Bark that looked like a Fire scar. Doesn’t make sense to me, but it’s a distinctive feature of this Tree and a reminder that its journey has not always been easy.

Looking straight up the Trunk toward the Leader reaching for the Sky the Bark got smoother and smoother as it went up and the Trunk got smaller. Could it be that a certain girt stretches the smooth Bark far enough that it separates and allows the rougher Bark to form? If so, why?

The most striking feature of this tree for me, on this sunny Colorado Mountain morning, danced on the ends of short stems, quaking this way and that. Throwing shadows on the Leaves behind them, then fluttering out of the way. Leaves in groups of five opened and closed each others access to Great Sol’s brilliance.

The interplay of light and shadow these Leaves put on would make a great Calder sculpture. The shifting moving Leaves were beautiful. As beautiful as any work of art in a museum.

While being beautiful, they also perform Mother Earth’s true miracle, light-eating. Turning photons into sugars. The sine qua non for all complex life on this planet.