My friend took me to a new place the other day and I knew I had to return. Something called. When I first arrived I thought, This would be a good place to die, to just let go and allow my spirit to find release, let my body dissolve into the earth. Something of that happened there this morning, though not as I expected...which is a good thing. I will try to explain:


The challenge for me has been to let my rational, conscious awareness be as subsumed as possible by the impulses of the natural world: to surrender my own smaller needs. I realized this morning, however, that I no longer have enough intelligence to do this. (I would risk saying that at one point, maybe 25 years ago, this intelligence was stronger in me, but over the years the need to be someone has made me dull.) I have tried to make myself available to the natural world, but I have become so dense, so filled with data and thoughts and expectations, the natural world has a difficult time finding a way in.


When I arrived this morning, I thought I would work on the "movement of dying." I had a plan, in other words. I would do this and this and this and then this...which is, of course no real dying at all. Fortunately, I found a way out of this folly or, better put, a way out found me. This place that had called was, indeed, a good place. Soon, I was emptied into its presence.


Standing in the midst of the trees, they found a way in. There was no longer "me" trying to move. For a grace-filled few moments, the trees were moving me, speaking a kinetic, wordless text. By grace again, "my plans" to die deceased. Through the earth and into my feet old roots and long memories filled my limbs. A tempest storm raged. Mute cries of outrage and tortured screams. Whose memories were these? Whose tempest storm? Were these the trees speaking, or were these my own flesh memories unearthed and uprooted?

I believe the only answer to this question is, Yes!:

The place of trees was speaking the same speaking in me.

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