Steadfast Continuity
#Processing #Trusting #Becoming
Hi, friends,
lately, my attention has gone to trees. I've been noticing how their endurance, often long before and after ours, shows what seems, their eternal and uprightness, almost like guardians, pillars, holding us up, just as they do for themselves. Solid, firm, and yet flexible with the wind, they are deeply rooted in the earth and vastly open, seeming to touch the sky.
Trees, just like us, play a huge role in the inconceivable, in the answer of the essence of what is, of what life is.
Starting as a seed, growing, then shedding, transforming, composting, and decaying with each and every time throughout the cycle of life, unveiling hope, joy, sadness, sweat, and tears, all the while producing branches, leaves, fruits, and blossoms of love and then losing them sometimes being delicious and beautiful, sometimes sour, bitter and withered, 4 season's long. Aren't they like reminders of our own lives and stories?
In Zen Buddhism, there is a question asked by a student to a teacher, "What is the living meaning of Zen?" to which the teacher answers, "The cypress tree in the courtyard."
Deng Ming Dao from Everyday Tao, 1996 describes his feelings quite beautifully by saying, "A tree uses what comes its way to nurture itself. By sinking its roots deeply into the earth, by accepting the rain that flows towards it, by reaching out to the sun, the tree perfects its character and becomes great. ... Absorb, Absorb, absorb. That is the secret of a tree."
Poetry, art, caregiving, gardening, anything inspired which comes naturally grows on trees, floats in the air, and leaves imprints at the bottom of our feet. It provides the work of our own hands evoking the mystery that we become intimate with when we unclench our hands willingly. It also provides shelter serving as homes for visitors who may live or dwell in, or lean against it too. The natural course of years, of lives, generations, and animals existing or situating within.
All this leaves me connected to my heart-mind and how trees are more than just trees; a part of a divine experience of God as we take part in it, too. The cycle that keeps going round and round, permanence/impermanence, presence/absence, form/emptiness all becoming one in two, into one!
I guess the answers my friends, are blowin' in wind, the answers are blowing in the wind like a freewheel down or up the hill.
Cheers to Dylon and to some of his lines from "Blowin' in the Wind" by Bob Dylan from his album The Freewheelin':
How many roads must a man walk down...
Yes, and how many years must a mountain exist...
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
Yes, and how many times must a man lookup
Before he can see the sky?...
The answer is blowin' in the wind.
Next time, let's pause and look at the beauty of a tree and say thank you, including ourselves as nature's creations and see how that unfurls in our day-to-day lives, with each other, in this vast dance of life.
Best & Warm Wishes,
xoxo, Sylvia