… we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree. Luke, Acts 10:39
Trees have been servants of humanity from our inception. They are providers of heat, food, shade, shelter, tools and transportation. But they are also servants of human cruelty, become the means for hangings, crucifixions and other monstrosities. Every aspect of creation in relation to us becomes through us loving or fearful. Below is a somewhat unusual and loving portrait of tree. Perhaps as we move from human error to human KIND our way of relating to the world changes.
March 28, 2020 Tree in the Time of Viral Isolation by MaryBeth Scalice.
The door to wholeness is opened through relationship.
Wholeness is health and health is unity with the will of God.
How might we realize our wholeness now?
How do we seek communion with a mandate to separate?
Every aspect of relating is a way.
To relate is to identify with your creative ability,
giving your Self, extending as God extended you.
Every part of life that seems different
presents an opportunity.
Yesterday I stood before a tree.
I kept gazing, deeply appreciating –
as if to feel this tree.
By the worlds standards it is ugly,
stark, leafless, waterlogged, nearly dead.
Moss rises up the slanting trunk.
A sign hammered in its gut points to a trail.
Rusted staples remain where
anxious pet owners sought lost pups.
Once before I spent a half hour
pulling out the metal snippets
as if tending to its wounds.
Some were embedded so deep,
I could not remove them
and only managed to make
barbs of the broken pieces.
Peering up I saw a gouge in the trunk.
It was almost the length and width of my body,
pulpy and wet inside from the recent rains.
I noticed bare branches and desiccated wood.
How did it carry on?
It seemed unnatural in its insistence on standing, and surviving!
Much of the upper trunk was gone.
Something made me venture close,
as if tree had something to tell me,
as if it understood my compassionate interest.
Do not be sad, look here.
I came round to the right, noticed midway up
a young branch with tender twigs.
New life was reaching in many directions.
There were fingers out-sprayed with buds
and leaves preparing to open.
Such a sweet surprise, this new view.
Moving to the other side allowed a joyful perspective.
Sorrow turned to hope,
the Holy Hope of our salvation.
My relating with tree soon brought
a blessing of epiphanies.
It needed only my inquiry and awareness,
What are you tree?
How are you tree?
It needed only for me to pause
and wonder about life there
to recognize my own will and hope.
Jess says every aspect of creation would teach us through relation,
every aspect a relative, family, sharing God DNA with me.
If I would just step back and reflect of tree,
water, moth, human being…
What a richness of
understanding would unfold,
a way of wholeness through feeling,
moving beyond what senses label, reality.
I love tree. How much more could I love you?
How much more could you teach me about love,
about being in this world
which feels now frightening and separate,
where relating seems foreign and threatening.
How much fruit would new realms of relating bring?
To relate with anything is to be an explorer.
What is it I discover?
There is within me something ready to be shared.
I want to give it. Extending it, even to tree
reveals Christ, Conscious within me.
What is it I learn?
There is something in other that is my own.
I welcome it. Accepting brings wholeness,
a moment of completion.
To receive it is to heal.
Willingness to know, to understand,
to take inside me in totality,
your body-mind and spirit,
that which feels other, distant, different,
is to invite the essential Soul of the universe to waken
and find Itself home within the child of God.
There are no true boundaries in presence,
being, knowledge or the heart-mind of creation.
Every aspect of life shares the essence of the Christ.
Still it comes in softness, defenselessness,
an ear attuned to Love’s invitation.
Connection requires desire
and trust in communication.
Intuitive integration is the language of the soul.
Perhaps today you are anxious to dissolve feelings of loneliness.
Perhaps you are finally going to put aside your pre-disposition
of what you or anything other might be.
if so, seek out a friend in tree, boulder, dog or stream.
Let them appear divested of your perceiving.
Search to find them in your heart.
Inquire of their meaning.
I make all of creation my teachers,
asking respectfully, what do you mean?
I come not knowing, seeking solidarity,
seeking kinship and rapport.
It may seem silly to fraternize
with what we’re taught is merely matter.
But merely is really so much More.
Do not miss it. Become curious.
Yesterday tree taught Hope
sharing newly sprouted signs of life
where death seemed to prevail.
Yesterday a sincere will to know, to relate,
brought understanding and peace to my soul.
An external it, a mere tree, became Us, or We, together,
tree as part of me in the creativity of Life.
Understanding was a path to unity.
Unity is another word for love.
Love is the Revelation of God.
The Revelation of God looks out upon all being
and knows One.
In Truth, we live in each other. My health, my happiness,
the Home I have been searching for is literally within you.
God in His Glory, dwells in His children.
His children have never left the dwelling place of their birth.
Our Wholeness is that estate, our One Heart complete
without limit or exclusion. Jess says,
… you dwell in the Mind of God with your brother,
for God Himself did not will to be alone. T-II.1.5.5
Neither do you.
By the way, if you were thinking I would suggest,
your hugging a tree, ha! I am not that crazy.
I am, however, all for your open heartedness.
It would be best if you first accept
tree’s warm and happy embrace.
Careful if you walk the woods.
You could be overwhelmed with hugs!