Songs Without Words/ A Day with the Mosses

A day came when I had things to do... but when I stepped into the garden and 
felt the sparkling sunshine and listened to the high-summer buzz, a deeper need 
sent me to the forest. Drum in hand and small friend by my side, I set out along 
the path. I thought maybe to walk to the whispering stone, or the faery pool, but 
not far into our journey, I bent low and stretched out on a patch of moss amongst 
trees and mountain laurel. Drizzle the day before had set the mosses a-glow and 
nearby in the clearing, a gathering of dragonflies darted this way and that, silvered 
wings flashing by. 

Far off a raven squawked, and all around the rhythmic chirping of crickets

comforted me. I'm not quite sure why cricket songs are so soothing to me - 

the constant hum brings me to a quiet, listening place. 

Lying on the mosses, looking up at the sky, I listened for a long, long time. It is 
so absent of human-made noise here, that one can truly sink into dreaming and

remembering...

After a time, I sat up, gathered my drum and my voice and my deep gratitude for 

this place and sang songs of trees and mosses and dragonflies and wind. Closer now, 

the raven answered and wondered, I'm sure, about this strange woman who sings 

songs with made-up words, more sounds than language... or maybe I am singing 

in that ancient tongue - you know, the one that is spoken of in the old stories, 

from a time when humans and animals shared a language, and knew better how to communicate. Perhaps the raven knows what I am saying, even if I do not. 

When finally it was time to return, I noticed, as I always do, how the quiet 
listening, the drumming and singing and dreaming had shifted me. In 
my expanded awareness, stones and trees and creatures each spoke to me with
their particular forms and gestures. Maybe this is the communication the old 
stories tell of. Perhaps the language is not lost, but it is a language of the senses
that is not spoken, but felt - mumbled to us by the shape and texture of a stone, 
the particular bend in a tree, the flash of light on dragonfly wings. 

Forest Medicine

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.

Textural tidbits and beyond a tangle of laurel...

Yesterday's walk was a blessing after the whole day of grant writing at my computer! It was a slow amble, enjoying the occasional tree frog song, one of my favorite forest sounds. 

It was a day to notice the small details;

 colors and textures, 

patterns of light on bark....

Wounds on a beech tree looking like runes...

A little magical clearing, 

 beyond a tangle of laurel.

An enchanted gathering of mosses,

and entrances to underworld mysteries,  

where curious cats explore....

   and blur...

  though not his feathery,

 swishing tail.

Did he slip for a moment between the veils? 

No you say... 

just a moment of motion and light 

and digital cameras and such.

hmmmm, I wonder....

The long shadows of late afternoon....

and sacred circles, 

a map of the inner life of a tree -

a tree going back to earth.