Equinox: A Time for Tree-umphant Attunement

Years ago, during my Inannic awakening, I threw my arms around trees and sobbed out my grief, feeling their loving embrace. I began talking to crows, paying tribute to their visceral wisdom in a poem that concluded, "A coded conversation/In guttural cries/Opens my eyes/And lifts me higher." I fell in love with the Moon. With my brain on an extended vacation I began to access a more primitive part of my being, to participate organically in the instinctual world, not merely watch.

Trees are our allies, anchors in stillness keeping silent council with their frenetic human brethren. Even their to-do lists are rooted in an ancient rhythm. ("Monday: 1. Photosynthesize. 2. Send stored water to branches. 3. Bud 17 new leaves.") We can emulate them by standing tall in our truth, becoming quiet, listening with our whole being, and swaying with the winds of change so we bend rather than break.

In this equinoctial moment, I invite you to take the tree-mendous opportunity to tree-umphantly attune to inner and outer balance along with our beloved planet. Mythologist Kathleen Jenks offers some lovely lore and poetry to assist in this endeavor on Myth*ing Links. And in the spiral of life, a poem I crafted 30 years ago interweaving human and bucolic love is appropriate now as well:

Our early love

was rosewood, aged guitar grain

your fingers fretting,

latticework of love.

tune me:

I am your instrument.

We grew to oak

limbs intertwined, minds

like grosgrain

honed to hickory.

breathe me:

I am evergreen.

We stroke the night

cocooned in crimson,

nestled in a hollow

of feeling.

whittle me:

I am the virgin bark of dawn.

Dearer By Day © Amara Rose 1982-2012

Memorial Day: Releasing the war within us

This weekend the United States observes Memorial Day, a federal holiday enacted after the Civil War to commemorate the men and women who died in military service. Yet there is no recognition of a more insidious war that's being waged globally, every day, by billions of people: the one we're fighting with ourselves.

In our civilized, industrialized, pasteurized, homogenized world, we're frozen into form, ossified in the material — and inured to the whispers of tree leaves, the murmur of brooks, the hissing of summer lawns. Now it takes a rock and roll band pounding 110 decibels directly into our ears, and still most of us, earbuds securely in place, walk on placidly. It's a false peace, and we know it. The uneasiness stirs in our bones, barely kept at bay by the jackhammer rhythm of life in the 21st century.

It's as if we've all been secretly anesthetized against the pain of those who yearn — and it's our yearning, our fear, our wounding, our wonder, that's wanting. But turning to face the music means accepting the invitation to the Dance. And most of us have forgotten how to dance — if indeed we ever knew. We find it easier to lash out in anger: rage, the undiscovered country. If being "outrageous" means getting the rage out, Americans are black belts. READ THE REST!