More Tree Love

 

It's the high season of tree love for me, so I thought I'd belatedly share some pages from a fantastic Tree Journal workshop I participated in this summer with Orly Avineri, a wonderful artist, teacher and friend whom I love deeply.

Also, this beautiful poem:

WOODS

I wish to grow dumber,

to slip deep into woods that grow blinder

with each step I take,

until the fingers let go of their numbers

and the hands are finally ignorant as paws. 

Unable to count the petals,

I will not know who loves me,

who loves me not.

Nothing to remember, 

nothing to forgive, 

I will stumble into the juice of the berry, the shag of bark,

I will be dense and happy as fur. 

-Noelle Oxenhandler

On my birthday

On this, my birthday, I celebrate the cycles of life. Like the concentric circles on a tree, my aging creates a pattern unique to me, a mosaic of lines, pictures, patterns, words, people, places, memories. I am happy to be alive and healthy, awake and present to the swirl of life in me and around me, blessed with a roof over my head, tall old trees all around me, people and animals I love, art and writing that inspires me, study and learning that feeds me. I am alive and here today with all my heart, and I am grateful.