I am Arbutus, aka, the Tree of Knowledge. Look at me, I stand as I have always stood, raw, naked and unashamed. Unlike… ah but I’m getting ahead of my story.

There was this Garden, see? Oh, it was a garden of heavenly delights, the Garden of Eden, they called it. Everyone roamed around like me then, naked as the day God made them, and proud. In the way we are meant to be proud. Nothing to hide. Inside and outside made from the same cloth. Of course we hadn’t heard that turn of phrase then. We all wore skins—our own, not somebody else’s. If you get my drift.

Well, one day I was minding my own business as usual, stretching my limbs every which way to see how close I could get to Light—call it God, Sun, whatever, we just called it Light in those days. I was losing my bark as I do every spring and there was this friendly contest, see, as to who could get the best tan. Well, as far as I could see there was no contest—I always won hands down, or make it pants down, bark down, whatever, I always turned out the most brilliant chartreuse, and that was without getting at all burned. That was the rule—Eve, the woman, made it up—if the beautiful tan turned out to be a burn, you lost automatically. She made Adam the judge. Personally, I think it was a game between those two, just another excuse for touching. As if they needed one.

So I was standing there, my limbs stretched out every which way reaching toward Light and I felt this tickly sensation on my skin, something was slithering up onto one of my lower limbs. I tried to shake it off but it wouldn’t budge, it just kept crawling and crawling, up one limb and down the other till I thought I would scream. I wondered briefly if this was someone’s trick to make me lose the best tan contest that year.

Just then I heard “Pssst!” I listened.”Pssst!” I heard again.

“What?! What do you want? Can’t you tell I’m working on my tan?”

“Where are your leaves-s-s-s? I’m burning up in this hot s-s-sun!”

“They’re where they always are, I’m open, I’m the original WYSIWYG guy, I have nothing to hide. Leaves are just for decoration anyway, don’t you know that? And who are you, by the way? If I wasn’t a naturally polite guy I’d tell you to get off me, you’ll ruin my tan.”

“Well, I had this idea, s-s-see. You’re the guy they call the Tree of Knowledge, right? And I thought p-s-s-s-s-s-s…” The rest sounded like one long hiss, but I got the gist alright. No good had ever been spoken in that language.

 
“Giroff!” I shouted. “You’ve come to the wrong man, er, tree, but you don’t know me. You think that just because my body and limbs are all twisted I’ll fall in with your devious plans to separate our resident humans from each other and from their God.” I was disgusted, I was mad. I was losing good tan time. I gave myself a vigorous shake and returned to what I’d been doing, stretching way, way out…

The snake? From what I heard, he must have slithered on off to the next tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But that's a whole 'nother story. You can read it somewhere, in some bible, I heard tell. But it ain’t my story and you sure as heaven won’t find it in these pages…©RAD 2009

[Photo credits:  1st   2nd ]

 

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1) What music soothes you? (an artist, genre, song, etc.)
Indian classical, especially bansuri (bamboo flute).

2) Do you use scents for relaxation, if so which ones? (essential oils, bath salts, food, candles)
I do but don't necessarily use them consistently. At the moment, though, I'm burning sandalwood joss sticks, a gift from a friend.

3) Do you ever get massage, acupuncture or do yoga?
I have found yoga helpful for many years and I also now regularly do self-massage based on (myofascial) trigger point techniques.

4) Which friend(s) or family members do you go to for support and love?
My best friend lives up island a ways. She knows me better than most...

5) If you could go anywhere to relax where would it be?
I would love to spend some time at the Osho meditation resort at Pune.



 

Horses. Indra Gypsy was the third of four horses I owned, and the first I raised from foal. She's still a yearling here, I think. Ah, those were the days...



And here's a horse story I wrote recently:

It wasn’t the first time I had witnessed it, the dam down only long enough to get the foal on the ground and the afterbirth out of the way. She lurched to her feet and turned toward the newborn, nuzzling her, drying the birth fluid off her with a rough tongue, nudging her to lift her head, move her limbs, urging her up on her stick legs, again and again till she could dance-balance for the time it would take to receive her first fill from the waiting udder. I watched the miracle, never guessing there was another one on the way.

The next morning, a Saturday, we came across him, a quivering mass of red-brown quarter-horse flesh lying in the field, eyes half-closed and already glazing over. We carried him to the mare, but she would have none of him, sidestepping our every attempt to help him help himself to a mouthful or two of the lifegiving elixir she alone could provide, or deny.

—Survival of the fittest, she neighed. —Can't feed 'em both. Look at him, puny runt, he'll never make it anyway.

—He'll never make it without mother's milk, I scolded.

But we took him anyway, blanket-wrapped and laid him on the floor of the three-quarter ton truck bed, our young daughters holding watch, thrilled to be allowed to ride in the open air for once, thrilled at the thought of having a foal for a home pet.

Back at the house we settled him inside a small greenhouse that hadn’t yet been put to use.

—Not the right place, I worried at my partner. —Not enough air.

—It's all we've got, we don't have a shed and we can't leave him in the open.

I bit my lip. It was true, any foal, never mind one in his condition, would be easy prey for a coyote prowling up from the park or stray dog foraging in the neighbourhood.

—At least leave the door open a crack so he doesn't suffocate, I conceded.

We prepared borrowed baby formula and fed him from a bottle every hour or so. He couldn't take much at any given time. We would have prayed, but we had never been much for praying. You did what you could, that's all, was our motto. By evening he seemed stronger and we left him dancing on wobbly legs.

Monday came, a work day, a school day. I drove home at noon to check on him. When I got there the greenhouse door was tight shut, the foal lying on his side on the dirt floor. I slammed the door open, too late. Our little refugee had no breath, no vital signs, his body’s warmth not an indicator of life but of the force of the sun that beat down on him.

—What idiot did this to you? I railed. But of course, he had no answer for me, just the calm of death telling me: It’s too late. Don’t waste your breath. Don’t get lost in hopeless causes to find justice. And leaving me to wonder: Did he even have a fighting chance to begin with? What chance does a newborn have when its mother rejects it out of hand?

After the vet came to confirm what I already knew, I cried. We all did. We wept with the frustration of losing him now. We wept at the tragedy of his too-short life. We had hoped against hope for a second miracle.

But really, was this foal any less of a miracle than his sister? If anything, he was the greater miracle, even though he didn’t live, because he fought against greater odds.

And there is this too: In the single weekend we had him in our care he touched the hearts of two children and two adults in a way that the surviving twin never would. For a while we were all pulling together, united in our efforts to give the little foundling we had fallen in love with, a half-decent chance at life.

Perhaps not most vivid, but memories of my grandpa are way up there among my best memories. And being as how this is father's day, let me tell you a story:

After a lifetime of farming he retired to our town, bought a house on 11th, a white two-story kiddy-corner across the street from one of my classmates (the only other lefthander), though not really a friend of mine, shy girl that I was, talented boy that he was. Years later I would be blown away by his rendering of honky-tonk on an old piano on Main Street outside his dad’s grocery store, the street closed off for Old Time Value Days. I remember we had the Harmonicats that year too. They weren’t from our town and they were really good, but I thought Billy was right up there with them. I don’t think he knew I existed.

11th street was ‘miles’ away from where we lived on 6th Street South---seems far when you’re nine and seven---and going there was like entering a different world.

The garage cum workshop had cool tools like a saw and a vise, and grandpa’d show us how they work and let us try, under careful supervision of course. And there was a wheelbarrow, red paint weathered, sides rotting, it had definitely seen better days. But we revelled in wheeling each other down the street in it, to a chorus of “Can I?”s from neighbourhood children stuck with tricycles, small bicycles with training wheels, sparkling red wagons or plain shank’s mare.

Grandpa’s house had the tallest swings around, they challenged us to fly. “I’m higher than you-u, na-na-na-na-na-na!” “No, you-re no-ot, I a-a-a-a-m!” And the trees we climbed, bravado-ing each other onto the flimsiest branches. But somehow we always knew when to head back to the trunk and sturdier branches. At grandpa’s house we were allowed to crawl down the stairs headfirst. Well, mom says we weren’t and if she had known that and about the trees she would have had a thing or two to say, if you know what I mean.

It was different when grandma died---no more sleepovers, no one to snug us to bed, lullaby us to sleep or tape up our knees when we fell.

But grandpa would come to our house and plant himself on a chair just there inside the livingroom so he could talk to mom, who was always busy with something, in the kitchen preparing a meal or maybe just passing through to tend to some child’s needs. And where he sat was an open invite for us kids to climb on him, show him our treasures and tell him all about our latest adventures.

“And then, grandpa, grandpa, you know what…?” tugging at his arm, feathering our fingers over his bristly chin, anything to draw his attention back from mom or sister or whatever else had grabbed it for a moment.

Plus, he was always good for a hug.

Sometimes he’d take us places, just us kids in the car, like when we went to the cemetery to help him weed and water a flower bed he’d planted on grandma’s grave, marked with ‘Helena’ on a small wooden homemade cross because the earth hadn’t settled enough yet for a headstone.

Myself, but not what I usually think of when I say *myself.* Not my self.

Not my body, my soul, my mind, although they may be involved in the giving.
Not my personal power. If I give it away, I have no will left to give, no self to give from.
Not my *voice*, my essence. Not what makes me, me.
Not my freedom to choose responsibility. Though my power of choice may be restricted in physical ways, no one can take from me the power that I have to accept and *own* whatever comes, and to be at peace with it.
Not my duty, nor any gift or action that might come from any sense that I owe you, or that I am responsible for you, or that I am to blame for what happened to you.
Not my forgiveness. If "You hurt me" doesn't live outside my thoughts, what is there to forgive? Except maybe myself, for believing my thoughts.

So here then is what I would like to give, always to the best of my ability:
My listening, with heart, soul, mind.
My sharing, of experience, of joy or sorrow, of whatever else feels right.
My presence, though not necessarily physical.
My compassion, but not necessarily sympathy, because one who accepts responsibility for her life does not require, or even want, sympathy.
My encouragement, for you to find your voice, your truth, your light, and to take responsibility for your life.
My acceptance of you as a person and a spiritual being.
My love.

 
I wake up whole again, joy-full.
A thousand yeses on my tongue
shimmy past yesterday's doldrums.
An incandescence shouts: I AM LOVE!

Remembrance arrives: Before anything, love.

Yes!
 

Authenticity.

Actually, I want to learn less. Or maybe I want to learn to want to learn less. It's outside knowledge, intellectual knowledge I want to learn less of, so that it interferes less with the inner knowing (not knowledge) that is already there, that makes itself known in the silent, listening moments. I guess what I really want is to learn to trust enough to live from the inside out, rather from the outside in, and to live that way all the time, not just some of the time. Outside-in living has so many limitations; it's trying to fit a world of perceptual illusion into a world of pure being. Inside-out living works every time. It's pure, authentic living. It's real. Real-to-real living. It opens up a universe of possibilities.

There was a time when I thought if only I could learn enough about my past, about my heritage, then I'd know who I was. Then I'd be ready to start living. But it's really the other way around, isn't it? When I can leave my past behind me, or accept it, integrate it without having to know every detail; when I can shake off all the illusions---mine, those of my family and my people---and all the expectations of who I'm supposed to be in the world; when I can give up having to figure it all out; when can I give up the need to intellectualize everything; then I am free to start living. But it's a different kind of living. It's not goal-oriented, it's not overly planned, it's not rigid. What it is, is balanced.