Listening to the Land

Beside the Butternut Tree

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The weather is sunny, hovering near freezing, a slight breeze and thin layer of moist snow on the ground, melting in the sunlight.

I am speechless. Forehead to bark, back to trunk, I balk at the notion of becoming Tree. Yet this seems to be what is happening. Such a slowed pull, deep into roots, and a patience that my body cannot fathom. A purity of aloneness makes my squirrel-like tempo a sharp contrast. My thoughts, like dustballs, have little substance and no resonance in this space.

I can only learn this language, tree-speech, by surrendering many skins of my humanness.