Treewhispers

This Thanksgiving I received and was touched by an e-mail from Marilyn’s brother Bud. I’m grateful for our connection — and his introduction to an insightful and dedicated response to the care of our trees, our earth and ourselves which bears sharing:

To Friends and Family,

As we gather in real time and space… I’m reflecting on how fabulously fortunate I am to have an extended family of amazing friends and colleagues who care deeply for all of life and their loved ones! This is a direct wish from my heart to yours!

Warm Greetings from frigid Colorado on this Thanksgiving. I invite your indulgence for a few moments of reflection. Inspiration swept over me as I finished reading a provocative book this morning…

Here is one realization…the fact is, our world is abundant, a cornucopia of potentiality!  The only limitations are created by human ignorance and constructs based upon fear, scarcity and lack. So let’s celebrate Hope and Love in Action.

As we, together, venture into the co-creation of a Live HOPE Festival.  Soon, I’ll share more about how this will unfold. On this Thanksgiving I’m feeling this as more important and essential to join together in a ceremonial celebration of the possible, which is now becoming the necessary! 

SPOILER ALERT:   I’ve just completed reading EROSION   Essays of Undoing By Terry Tempest Williams.

And, I’m compelled to share my summary of her final essay:  She tells several compelling stories through her story telling. I’ll describe this one about the Ancient Sequoias in the Mariposa Grove, set aside by Abraham Lincoln in the 1864 Yosemite Land Grant Act.

These giant Sequoias are between 2,000 and 3,000 years old, imagine what they have witnessed.  One day a National Park biologist was walking through the grove in 2016 and shared a story with Terry. She imagined the trees speaking to her: “We are suffering, We are dying. Can you hear us?” 

Paved roads, buildings, concession stands encroached on the tree’s root systems and millions of feet had suffocated and tamped down their delicate, nourishing soil – they could no longer breathe freely in quietude. The biologist’s fierce integrity and spiritual spine accomplished a remarkable thing, she invited the National Park Service to listen and they did; they committed to a new vision and complete restoration plan for the grove.  Forty million dollars was raised. The parking lot was removed, the gift shop relocated, miles of roadways were taken out, the trams stopped running, walking paths were redesigned for the benefit of the trees health and the wellbeing of the whole ecosystem.

Her vision was one of restoration, to restore stillness to the chaos of park visitation, no longer a place of entertainment and recreation, but rather a place of reverence and restoration. The big trees were allowed to rest for 3 years and in 2018 the public was invited back to pay their respects to the Ancient Ones. NOW, Peace and Tranquility invite visitors to be seekers of stillness, capable of deep listening.

…  This is how Terry ends her powerful book:

 Are We Listening?

This is the Liturgy of Home.

There is only one moment in time

When it is essential to awaken

 That moment is now.

                                — BUDDHA

This does not require belief, it requires engagement.

How serious are we?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL OF US!

Bud