The Singing Trees

A raw afternoon, a gray winter's day. Dusk is coming on. I leave my apartment and cross the street. There runs a creek, its wide banks dotted with trees and boulders. Sweet flags and cattails cluster and sway. Sunlight dances in its shaded pools. It is one of my favorite spots to walk and simply be.

First I visit my most magical friends, the singing trees. A large aspen stands apart from the edge of the water. At her feet, two mighty roots reach forth and down into the earth, and upon them stand a hundred saplings and young trees. Not so long ago - last spring, it was - this little grove sang their song for me, and the smaller trees bent down and enfolded me in their supple arms. This is not a metaphor, and it was not a hallucination. Now, I sometimes stop by and visit, and share a very simple and private communion.

Hello, my friends. It is good to see you.
Hello, brother. It is good to see you again, too. You are welcome among us.

I run my fingertips along the limber branches, still devoid of new leaves, stripped for their winter steeping. Our conversation is not long, for we do not speak the same language. Yet their song is in my heart, and we know each other.

The Great Egret stands not far away. He is on the same side of the creek as I am, so he is wary. When he sees that I see him, he spreads his great white wings and slips across the water. He is no further from me, but with the stream between us he is more at ease.

I greet the stream: Hello, Mother. I see you have washed your meadow clean with the last storm. It looks good.

I pause at the Family Stones: a group of boulders arranged in a tight circle. Sometimes I sit here, but now the dips and hollows are marshy and full of water from the recent rains. The ground is fresh and clean, with the fine green peachfuzz of new grass. Plantain is springing up, and wild celery, and plants whose names I do not know. Here a mallow has burst into blossom, its flowers like bright sunny fists. Overhead, Brother Crow is heading home. Somewhere nearby, Brother Skunk and Brother Possum are stirring in their secret spots, ready to begin their day. I see Brother Bat and Brother Bug in the deepening blue above me. Soon, Brother Coyote will be trotting along where I now sit.

This is an old place. A city has been built on it, but beneath that remain the ancient bones and vibrant voice of Mother Earth. Within just a few miles of where I am, ancient standing stones and mysterious alignments still remain on the hilltops. In this place, my creek is freed for a mile or so from its concrete culverts and flood channels, and for that brief mile, life bursts forth at every turn.

I can hear ducks nittering and rustling as they settle into the invisible pools among the tall reeds. I can hear the doves murmur. A cricket tries out his voice, not a foot from my rock. And the world says to me:

Welcome, our brother and our son. It is good to have you here, man who walks and listens. We say to you, ajo! You are one of us.

I hear the sounds of the heedless city around me, fading into nothingness. The evening deepens, and it begins to rain. I love being bareheaded in the rain. I breathe. I walk. There is peace within. There is peace around me. Nothing can disturb it.

There will be peace in the valley.

8-D