Tag: trees

the unique becomes the universal

~ jennadawn ~ Leave a comment

Trees, forests, water
and time away from home
pulled my heart to the north,
to Waskesiu.

For years
I have heard, from people countless,
of Waskesiu being included in their summer plans
and each spoke of the place
with such fondness
that it made me want to stay away.
I did not want to find joy
in the same place as so many others
for fear that doing so
would render me ‘common’, ‘basic’,
or ‘just the same as everyone else’.
I fiercely believed
I needed to be different;
I needed to find a different place
to nourish myself
so I could stand apart from the crowd.
My mind told my heart
I was not allowed to go there;
I would not be happy in being the same.

With shifting priorities and family structures
this year, Waskesiu made sense
and yet,
I remained determined to spend the time
in a way that afterwards
when I shared my story
it would land outside what I assumed to be
the ‘typical’ experience.

We rented a cabin,
we brought our five-and-a-half month-old puppy,
we cooked our own food,
we hiked kilometers of trails.

We encountered hundreds of people
and dozens of dogs
and as I observed my surroundings
I saw people
laughing and talking and playing together,
running, reading, chasing after each other,
enjoying time alone,
in family gatherings spanning generations.

My eyes scanned the beaches
painted with rainbows of towels, umbrellas and bathing suits,
picnic tables holding families and food,
and hiking trails leading the way
deep into the forests
otherwise unseen from the main roads.

As I watched these hundreds of people
each in their own way
connecting with nature,
I felt my need for competition,
my need to be different,
my fear of fitting in,
fade away.
Instead, I began to think about
how many people
every summer
come to places like this
to be amongst the trees, on the sand, in the water,
away from home –
somehow
hundreds, if not thousands,
of people find some degree of reprieve and restoration
in coming here.

The unique becomes the universal.

I began to understand
the scenes before my eyes
illustrated a commonality
connecting us to our humanity –
that being in nature,
feeling the sun on our skin,
squeezing sand between our toes,
breathing in the pine of the forest
and living amongst the wilderness
are perhaps inherent needs
to us as human beings.

Perhaps it’s a need for me to wholly embrace,
rather than hold at an arm’s distance
in fear of this collective commonality,
what I need to nourish my soul.

Sameness is not always the enemy.

the forest beyond and within

~ jennadawn ~ Leave a comment

For most of my life
I have struggled
and do struggle
to see the forest
rather than the trees.

The split seconds
the brief and beautiful moments
where all I can see is the forest
the unified whole
seem so fleeting
when my gaze habitually resumes
onto individual trees
my heart shatters
at the let down
at the loss
at the implied regression.

Pause.
Breathe.
Zoom out.
See the forest
beyond
and within.
It’s always there.

listening to nature

~ jennadawn ~ Leave a comment

I hear the birds and I hear the branches
I hear the vehicles and I hear the leaves
I hear the people, the animals
and the machinery to keep us cool
and still
I seek to understand, to objectify, to name,
to satisfy my mind.

When my mind nudges in
for a turn at the microphone
she reminds me, again,
of past thoughts, past concerns
and future anxieties
I am trying to let fly away with the birds
I cannot see.

I hear these sounds,
I hear the music they orchestrate
but apart from the trees and leaves
I cannot see their sources.

I cannot see their source
and yet they are there,
they still reach my ears
somehow.

They come and go,
bending off and into each other
seamlessly
as if following a score
or being led by a conductor at the podium.
They trust in each other.
I close my eyes, expand my ears,
trusting the sounds will reach me
in nature’s perfection
without a need for rationality or manipulation.

Imagine, just for a moment,
the freedom, the weightlessness,
the joy,
of trusting that life will unfold as it is meant
if we are open enough
to hear it
to receive it
and to accept it.

spruce trees

~ jennadawn ~ Leave a comment

Spruce trees fill the front yard of my small-town home. Standing dozens of feet tall, they tower over the speckles of bushes and hedges growing close to the ground, but in communion with neighbouring trees who, too, extend tall and looming into the sky. One is blue, the others ‘normal’, or so I’m told. I can see tones of gray-blue in the one they call the ‘blue’ spruce, and perhaps green holds a more dominant position in the color palate of the others.

Regardless of their colours, they grow, they behave, they act in similar ways, as how the world would expect members of a tree family to be. Here, in the spring, once the snow melts away, the ground stands covered in cones and needles. Not that the snow had much opportunity to stand in its own self-assurance, for the needles see to it that the snow quickly and silently melts away wherever they choose to fall, and land. Sneaky are these trees. The cones and needles dirtied the snow like clumps of dirt and sprays of sand all winter long, that is, until they unleashed their power and spell-casted the snow to disappear, almost overnight.

I wonder if I could make something disappear overnight.

Out into the yard I go, nowhere to step but on cones and needles. I cannot see a single blade of grass left free to stand alone. For hours I rake, gathering into piles the cones and needles and clumps of dead grass that could not withstand the ruthlessness of the falling all around them.

The trees know how to let go of what they no longer need. How to let go of what no longer serves them. All winter they engaged in this process, including seasons before, though more subtly, dropping useless cones and needles to the ground. The trees do not need them any longer; why would they let them go otherwise? I assume they let them go for practical purposes, and not based on emotionality. I assume trees to be straightforward beings.  

For hours I rake, wondering of the lives of each cone and needle slowly gathering in amongst the prongs of the rake and joining together in a pile. The trees seem to have fully embraced the act of letting go. Glancing up, dozens of feet above me to the very tops of the trees and into the piercing white light of the sun, I see more cones still, hanging on to the branches by their tips. Eventually, they will join others on the ground. For now, they keep hanging on.  

The piles grow larger and larger behind my rake, with collections scattered across the lawn. I appreciate just how much new space the trees have created for themselves. I imagine how free they must feel, to sense this space for new opportunities, for new growth.

Glancing up once more to where clusters of cones remain huddled together, I see how those branches droop heavily; lower than the others with no cones to be seen. Bending under the weight of holding on, the tree assumes responsibility for what the cones cannot carry. The cones do not care, for they do not have to hold up their own weight. But the tree does, and continues to do so, sporadically up the tree trunk the farther my eyes travel.

As my eyes travel, I see freedom, I see weightlessness, I see excitement; I see space for the future in the branches swaying with ease. I see heaviness, I see crowdedness, I see comfort in familiarity; I see the past weighing down the present in those branches encumbered by cones.

I see the same, in me.

I see the spaces in my body where I hang on to that which I believe I cannot live without. The memories that pull me back into my past and hold me hostage there. The people I used to know, the people who made me who I am. The people I used to be. The could-haves, the would-haves, and oh, the should-haves. Opportunities lost, chances never taken, words never said aloud to those who needed to hear them most. Voices echoing in my head, telling me what to do; voices that are not my own. Expectations and wishes, pressures and dreams that remain in the same place in which they were born, static. 

I also see the spaces in my body where I have, slowly, made space by letting go. I feel the calmness, the weightlessness, the joy in my heart of being at home raking cones and needles on a Thursday morning. I see images of people I have left behind so I could move onward. I see the moments where I chose to dance to the beat of my own heart when people told me I would be best to dance to music they have deemed to be safe and familiar. I see and hear the voices, and the narratives I have committed to re-write and re-record to better suit my ever-evolving nature. I see the constant of change, the necessity of change, and the beauty and demanding presence of uncertainty.

If I were to let go of the cones frantically hanging on to me, digging in their needles tight and strong, I wonder how many would fall. I wonder what would happen to them, once they hit the ground.

I wonder who I could become.

new assurances

~ jennadawn ~ 3 Comments

Awaiting events
scheduled into tomorrow’s calendar,
excitement serves as the energy source
stirring the restless butterflies
at the base of my stomach.

There’s a gentle breeze rustling the trees
on this bright Monday morning,
dropping dried-out pine cones to the ground
and stirring up dust in the streets.
On the jostling branches
I can see a few birds, small,
tightly clasping the wood
and chirping, singing, still,
songs of joy.
I can see them, I can hear them,
their assurance of spring’s arrival.

An opportunity to see,
what we have been told is true
by numerical values,
in a different way,
with our own eyes.

with each step forward

~ jennadawn ~ Leave a comment

I am walking along an unmarked trail
through the forests of a mountain range
where tree roots extend and appear
at the tip of my foot,
where boulders roll down the hillside
kicking up dust to infiltrate my eyes,
where I look for any small sign
of grass and dirt worn down by feet before me,
for I have not seen a sign for some time.

I hear the calls of animals
jostling through the leaves and branches.
Though I cannot see them
i assume them as more powerful than I,
with strength, size and a desire to kill
I cannot match.

Trees close in on me
as leaves become thick and air becomes dense.
I welcome it.
The pressure slows down my racing heart
and forces my chest to unravel.
Weigh heavy on me.

The only way out
is to keep along the invisible path
I make with each step forward,
whether small, side-stepped or stumbled.

I will know lightness again.

each one is a work of art

~ jennadawn ~ Leave a comment

Trees tall and green, with
trunks wide, adjacent the sidewalk.
There isn’t a spot of pure sunlight;
only small bursts of light
falling to the ground between the towering leaves.

Each house is different.
Color, size, shape, layout, accents –
oh, the accents –
make every house its own.
Front yards filled with flowers and gardens,
or smooth with paving stones.
Verandas outfitted with couches and chairs,
or a plain front door with stucco siding.
Front steps hanging on to the last inch of paint,
or built strong of stone.
Shades of brown, grey, or pops of bold purple, red, green.
A neighborhood unforgettable.

Every house catches my eye in its own way,
all cozied together, only a few feet of separation.
Blink, and you’ll miss one;
you’ll miss a work of art.

April snow

~ jennadawn ~ Leave a comment

Nestled between the needles,
white amongst the green,
tucked into crevasses to hide
from the warm, yellow sun
rising.

We, the snowflakes,
will soon die here.
Our lives are short, but sweet
in April.