Long ago and far away, in the time of my great, great, great grandmother's
grandmother's grandmother's grandmother, it wouldn't have been odd, living at
the edge of the forest, knowing medicine to be something other than what comes
in bottles from a store. I am grateful, that the source of greatest healing for me
wraps me in evergreens and softens my footfalls with great tribes of mosses.
Months, days, hours of doing, accomplishing, making lists, grant paperwork, setting
up shop, web sites, meetings and lastly a shiver-making dentist drill and novocaine
piled up one upon the other like sacks upon my back 'til worn out I halted, and remembered the wild that would heal me.
Walking out into the forest in a healing way, a medicine way, requires a deepening
into the moment, a slowing - reverence. Beginning inside unplugging phones and
holding an intention to bring with me on my journey, I packed a basket of offerings.
My prayer eggs from Equinox, nuts, and cornmeal, sacred to the first people of North America.
Snow boots still needed, but, thankfully, not snow shoes. I crossed the paths
of many critters, though with the wet snows of late, hard to know which was
animal and which snow-plop. Some places full of deep snow, some bare ground.
I left my offering at the Forest Circle, pouring cornmeal into the toe track of a
fisher who trotted right across the altar. I wonder which furry neighbor will
be the first to eat from it?
It seemed that everywhere I looked, Tree Spirits were watching me...
Do you see the one below?
At a favorite spot, I stopped to place a spiral of cornmeal on a stone,
and to listen awhile.
When I turned, another face peered down from a towering, hemlock snag.
This old tree is a favorite of the woodpeckers and I imagine a home for many.
Faces, everywhere, with astonished open mouths and wide eyes....
I realized this might be the reason my sculptures look as they do.
Such a beautiful, slow turning to spring. Grandmother Winter gently pulls the snow
away from the edges of things and collects it in her cauldron to take with her as
she journeys to the south. Delicate ferns emerge as the snows recede, many having
stayed green under the warm snow blanket all winter.
A tall, healthy beech tree, rare in these parts because of a blight. Her
smooth, silver trunk right next to one gnarled with disease.
Peeling bark of the paper birch.
Pasha, off on his own journey, finds me at last.
He invites me to sit with him to share stories.
He tells me of Partridge Berries and looks quite dashing
on his stump-perch: moss-colored eyes and coat of
hemlock brown.
I see what friends have long said, that he and I have
the same mossy eye color.... I think my mane is also turning
into tree bark.
With me on my travels these days, is a beautiful,
Enchanted Forest necklace from Delila in Finland,
a country not far from my father's, father's father's home.
I like that.
There is magic in this necklace, I feel the forest whisper
to me when I'm away.
