Although I have lived here for five years now, there is never a day when I don't raise my eyes to the oak trees and feel blessed and this morning I got a fuller realization of why that is.It's because it's like living in the midst of the elders, the wise parents, the glorious ancient ones.
They make me feel sheltered and they remind me that roots are important and if they are deep enough and strong enough, the things which can't be controlled- drought and wind and lightening- can be survived.
We are not trees and our roots don't have to be put down in one particular place. They can be put down anywhere, in the rich loam of family, in the ethereal and very real energy of love. They can be put down in belief, in work, in writing poems or raising hogs or in any of the things humans do which gives them a feeling of belonging, of rightness.
And if they are strong enough, the things which we cannot control will be survived.
I went crazy last year. I lost my shit. I thought I was dying, I wanted to die. I didn't know what to do. I walked and wandered and shivered and cowered. I got help, I took (and take) pills, I tried breathing and reading and escape and all together, they helped bring me back to this place where I am now- not entirely whole, but sound enough.
And what kept me from being one of those people who end up in a "facility" or from following up on what something kept telling me I wanted- perfect peace- was roots. As strong as the wind of insanity blew, my roots which have been planted so deeply into the love of my family would not be tugged up or out. But I will tell you this- it was a tenuous grasp those roots kept. It could have gone either way. As powerful as the hold of the love of my family was, it could have gone either way.
But they held. And so did the roots I have planted in some deep place of myself. Roots which I don't even think about, which I don't give credence to, which I don't even always believe in.
This thing which is me.
It's strange to think about oneself. Who am I? the teenager asks. What am I here for? the adult wonders. What has my life been about? asks the middle-aged woman when her children leave, her body changes, her mind scrambles for reason and rhyme. What have I done, what will I leave, how will it matter? all of us ask, no matter our age and although we may not have answers, somewhere inside of us, I think we know. It may not be the answer we wish we could give, but all of us have had a purpose here, all of us have had a meaning. All of us will have mattered. Poet or hog farmer or pianist or mother or father or lover or teacher or builder of roads or bird houses.
We have moments of perfect knowing the answers to all the questions. I'll admit I've moments on hallucinogens. Moments of perfect clarity. But somehow, artificially induced moments of clarity are not completely to be trusted.
The moments when I was most sure were the moments of giving birth. There was nothing artificially induced about that. I was fulfilling a biological destiny, kissed with perfect relief and joy.
Sometimes when I write something, I have a moment of knowing that yes, I said what I meant to say in words plain enough to understand. Those moments are rare but they shine so clearly and feel so perfect that there is no turning back from trying again and again to recreate them.
I am afraid I am not going to have one of those moments today. Maybe my heart is TOO filled for the words to translate feeling and belief into something to be read.
But I have to try. I have to try and describe what it's like to come back from nearly toppling over in a storm which came from nowhere, which battered me and bruised me and left me now, in the calm aftermath, so much surer of myself than I was before. Of myself, of the strength and depth of the roots of myself, planted perhaps originally in soil which had very little to offer in the way of fertility, but which now, through the life I have led, do. I feel them push down into rich ground, even here in this tiny world I live in, so rich to me, so real to me, so surrounded and sheltered by the ancients.
And this is what I love as much as being sheltered by those ancient trees- planting new ones. It's not enough to draw strength from what has been growing here for centuries. There has to be new life, too, and this is why I love to take the smallest things and put them into dirt and nourish them into flourishing life. Not to replace what is already here, but to continue the cycle of it all.
Ah, this is a mishmash of simile and metaphor and yet, there is nothing metaphorical about the way I feel when it comes to trees and plants and roots and storms and love and dirt.
Nothing at all.
One is as the other and they are all (please forgive this old hippie) one.
And I know how lucky I am to be here in this place, both in "reality" and metaphorically where the old oaks tower over me and I can slip new life into the ground to be here when I am long gone. Where I am in my heart, which is at a place where I can plant, I can believe in new life, I can yearn for it and nurture it and patiently wait for it to grow.
In all ways.
Or at least the ones I know.
Happy Friday. I'm sorry I got all philosophical about it today. But my heart is filled with it to the point where it has flowed over and spilled out through my fingers and I want you to think about your roots and where they flourish and how to nourish them because honestly, that's what keeps us here when things beyond our control seem to want to tear us away.
Go do something to nourish those roots. Draw a picture, write a poem, plant a flower, fertilize a garden, fantasize about raising chickens or having babies or falling in love or kiss your already-here babies or your already-here loves or plan a meal or make an altar or stop entirely and close your eyes and breathe and feel the connection of all things, living/not living, ancient, newborn, hoped for, dreamed for, schemed and plotted for, composed with sweat and blood, sprung forth fully formed, fish and apes and man and frogs, think of how we and they are all here with meaning and with purpose and all dependent on the whole made up of all of it, connected, even if it's not always apparent.
All is one, chants the yogi in quiet ecstasy. All is one, murmurs the breeze as it travels. All is one, whispers the blood as it rushes through our veins with its saltwater and iron. All is one, says the ocean as it touches the shore. All is one, says the dirt as it nourishes and holds up the old and the newly planted. All is one, says the oak tree as it stands above me, making the light green with its new leaves. Ancient and new and its roots go so deep. Deep enough to support the old, deep enough to give life to the new, deep enough to keep its hold as the planet spins and we are one as we spin together, our roots holding us fast, tangled together in ways of which we cannot see but which are true, nonetheless.
