The Forests of California

On Monday Oct 15th, I finally left Arizona after a full month in the Southwest and drove to the Sequoia area of the southern Sierra Nevada. I wanted to do 3 days of silent retreat during the new moon so was praying to be led to aquiet campground within walking distance of a grove of the ancient giants. Sure enough, I found exactly the place where I had the campground alone for my 4 nights there across the road from a trail called "Trail of 100 Giants."


October 17th: Yesterday morning I had a long, deep meditation sitting inside a hollowed out cavity beneath an ancient sequoia. I’ve been visiting the grove 3 times a day trying to quiet myself down enough in meditation to hear their language. I felt like I finally tuned in better than ever. I could feel the energy pulse of the tree and sense some “teachings” coming in, though I cannot articulate them now. I trust the teachings are coming in whether I can fully grasp them or not so I continue to come and sit with them. Last night after dark I sat in a cave formed by the two of them growing close, the cave formed by a fire that ate away at the base of both sometime in the past. I was visited by a tiny mouse and spider woman. The mighty trees are so huge and ancient it is just amazing to walk up to them. I got dizzy and queezy the first time I tried to sit in this cave.

The big trees in this grove are supposedly around 2000 years old—I can hardly comprehend it—40 times older than I am! In any case Tolle says we need to let go of the concept of time to be fully present, so what I DO know is that these old trees are elders and I am here to be a student of their teachings. One of the teachings is that my center is like their mighty trunks and is as ancient as they are even as my form has changed dozens of times during the course of their long lives. I need to continue to cultivate my awareness of my core-trunk-center-self and detach from identifying so much with this life time’s personality, body and thought processes. What I don’t quite comprehend about these ancient giant yakshi is their teaching about longevity of form even as I grapple with the teaching that all forms pass quickly away. More to meditate on today.

I was fascinated by the way the old sequoia are hallowed out, both while they are living and after they have died and toppled over. The first picture above shows me in a cave-like hollow at the base of a living tree. This photo is of a fallen giant, its hollowed core so massive that horses were corralled here in the mid-1800's by the calvary. This seems like such a metaphor for spiritual development; i.e. as we become more and more spiritually attuned our core becomes one with the formless realm from which we all emerge and to which we all return.

October 20th: Grandfather/Grandmother Sequoia spoke to me very powerfully this morning saying 'Draw your strength from the 4 elements--water, fire, air and earth. Believe in the timelessness of your core trunk-essence and don't be afraid of the fire that transforms you, the wind that blows the changes through you. The waters and the earth sustain not only your current life form but your everlasting life form. Stay rooted in Mother Earth and simultaneously reach into the formlessness of the sky, of spirit.' The Sequoia-medicine is their teachings about eternal life interwoven with the transiency of life in this physical form body. Their bodies live so long as to seem eternal (2000+ years), especially relative to our short human lives. They seem to live forever; they do not die of old age, rather they stay firmly rooted in life feeding on earth, air, fire, sunlight and water, moment by moment, day by day. Yet they DO pass away, topple over, are felled by man's axe. Yet, even the old ones that have fallen over remain in their tree trunk form on the forest floor for centuries; they only VERY SLOWLY decay into the forest floor because their wood and bark is resistent to rot and insect infiltration. So every day is their eternal NOW of living life on these mountain sides overlooking the smoggy valley to the west. In the 1800's they were, in fact, axed down, damaged and threatened by loggers, miners, cattle and sheepherders. Many of the ancient ones were cut down in the macho-man spirit of that era. But this gave rise to the birth of the conservation movement, the Sierra Club and this park was one of the first National Parks established. BLESS JOHN MUIR!!! The 1900's saw hordes of people and their cars and garbage visiting the area until in the "Giant Village" area camping, trampling and driving began to damage the trees' roots systems. So more changes: that area is currently being dismantled as a "town" and turned into a "foot traffic only" area. Now air pollution from the high population areas to the west threaten the forests health. Ah we humans...our needs and greed create such disruption to the natural world.

October 21st: This morning as I took my last walk before leaving these ancient wise elders I made note of how full of love and generosity the forests are toward us humans despite all of our uses and abuses of them. Year after year, decade after decade, now into the latter half of our second century of exploiting them, they still welcome us back to sit among them, smell their fragrance, be enriched by their stately stillness and ancient wisdom. I realize that I all too often succumb to my judgements about people. The forests, on the other hand, have no judgements. They just keep offering their gifts and welcoming us humans. They are a model of the deepest compassion and LOVE and forgiveness. And surely the Sequoia, as the LARGEST LIVING THINGS known to humans, are the GRANDEST model of all. In the mid and late 1800's they watched us topple acres and acres of ancient ones, despite the fact that the wood quality isn't even that useful. Yet, over a hundred years later, these same groves that watched their brothers and sisters be taken from the hillsides continue to welcome us, offer their shade, shelter and wisdom. Isn't this a good lesson for all of us??

October 22nd: I had a splendid day today hiking a trail from the end of the Kings Canyon road. When I drove here yesterday I was just bewitched by the beauty and drawn to some hiking here. Teachings came in from the deer, the aspen, the mountainside. The aspen leaves are so sensitive to the breeze and all go trembling and quaking with the slightest gust. I realize that the leaves are a metaphor for mind’s thoughts, always so easily stirred up, a hundred of them all at once. This is just the nature of the human mind, just like it is the nature of the quaking aspen.

But I can be grounded in my trunk, which is not so easily disturbed by the winds as the leaves are. The image of my core-center being like the tree trunk has been with me a lot these days. The sequoia carry this teaching too as they often lose their tops and many big branches and even their bottom trunk gets burned out by fuorest fire, hollowed out at the bottom, but their mighty trunk carries the life force through all of these changes. My challenge is to know my core trunk rather than identify with leaves and branches so much. More and more I see, believe, trust that I am in tune with this deep core energy in me, yet I don’t KNOW it and in fact identify most frequently with the thinker/analyzer who is less intelligent and, in fact, can be downright dumb, full of ignorance and delusion. Another image I had today was of a bright sunny landscape in paradise, with only one cloud in the sky. The “thinker” in me is stuck under the shadow of that one cloud while the rest of me is out playing in the lovely warm sun. But since I’m so identified with the thinker, I think it is cloudy and gloomy out and I am depressed and sad. I’m stuck in Miss Lonely Hearts while much of who I am is frolicking in joy. I don’t know how to shift my locus to the wiser, more intelligent part of me except to keep meditating, keep bringing myself back to here/now, call my own bluff when I find myself falling into the illusion of the one cloud.

The Redwood Coast

Nov 4: Today Redwood-medicine told me to quit counting years! I was given the advice to stop paying attention to how old I am, just know I am moving into my elder years and let it go at that. The trees here are OLD, some ancient. Some grandfathres, some great grandfathers, some great, great grandfathers and some way older than that. Old spruce here as well, and old snag, very ancient, long since dead, hollowed out still but holding their forms.

Nov 5th: I’m sitting in mid-afternoon sun and nearby ravens play in the brisk wind coming off the ocean. Ravens continue to be my near-constant companions on this journey, notable today especially as I prepared to leave my campsite on the beach and one circled, sat and called nearby. Later I stopped at a grove of redwoods and after playing my flute and doing prayers, two ravens circled high and called. Now there are a dozen playing on the winds nearby.

Fog blanketed the coastline when I first approached yesterday afternoon, but today the fogs dissolved fairly early and I was treated to a view of the moon, still very full, setting over the ocean mid-morning. There are still mists lurking and a fog bank out to the west, but stars grace the sky now. Fog and clouds are such a visible manifestation of form rising out of formlessness and I continue to ruminate on the teachings of Tolle and apply them to what I am experiencing.I hear the ocean beginning to FLOW and flood the beach, its roar will lull me nto sleep and I give thanks for being in this place at this time feeling open-hearted and connected in love as my pilgrimage begins to come to its end.

Nov 6: I wish I could capture the powerful communication I had with the redwoods earlier today when I stopped at a grove, sipped tea with a big tree and then walked a short ways until a cluster of 4 redwoods pulled me into the cave-like space between them. I was able to get very quiet and feel my boundaries dissolve and the trees take me in—-a delicious sensation. I also got some teachings about forms passing and accepting change and the rightness of how the world is, despite humanity’s crazy destructive aspect. The trees seem to be at peace about losing so many of their brethren (only 4% of old growth redwood are still standing); they stand in trust with the ever-changing face of planet earth and remind me to do the same. They also shared that it is a human thing to grieve, mourn, and weep for what is lost, and this is a gift to the world. But it is likewise a gift to sing, dance, laugh and be in joy, so they asked me to keep it all in balance. I felt weepy off and on yesterday afternoon and all day today, for a variety of reasons, maybe none of which is the REAL reason. Maybe I’m just full and empty, raw and tender after this amazing journey; and unsure about how it will be when I get home.

Nov 7th: Yesterday after sleeping all night in the open under a grove of redwoods, I stopped for a last walk in another grove before leaving the big trees. I realized that the redwoods remind me of the midwives struggle: the midwives were clear-cut here in North America leaving just a tiny percentage of elders in the field. Those of us who have been working to re-establish the profession are doing so without the benefit of nurse-logs and old trees for protection, just like the forests rising from clear-cuts. The redwoods told me to keep heart and trust in the bigger picture. Actually, hawk spoke this same message to me the evening before when I fell into heartache about losing David’s companionship in the wilderness, something we shared together for over two decades. “You can’t see the whole picture!” hawk’s piercing cry seemed to say. I keep getting all these teachings about not being so attached to the current form of things and my own little understandings. I have been impressed by the ancient trees (both redwoods and sequoia) seeming acceptance of the loss of so many of their tribe. So much forgiveness and acceptance!