Changing Paths

Sat in the tree tonight. Got a sappy kiss on my hand on the way up, which I inadvertently brushed against my mouth when I got an itch, so now my lips are sticky with the tree's juice.

There in the pine at night, I felt like a child in a boat for the first time, all the sights and sounds I've been missing since my regular sits, so much to see and sense and feel. The immensity of its body, like a massive building of branches and needles and air, of space and life. The view through its branches, the silent movement of them moving in the night breezes. The presence of the neighboring trees, the buzzing and chirring of the August insects.

Climbed down and walked a roundabout route back to the house. Passed by a newly empty spot in the yard where a rock - once our ceremonial rock, and then our sitting and visiting rock - disappeared from a couple of days ago. It surely left by the hands of one family member or another, who most likely wanted it for a retaining wall or the like. I was suprised to see it gone, but only after witnessing my husband's upset at the inherent dismissal of our opinions did it occur to me to be upset by it, as well.

While chewing on the circumstances of its disappearance tonight, I found myself walking very quickly back toward the house, an email in mind, and recognized the state I get into when I am not looking at the whole picture. Upon seeing my mindstate, I looked toward my sit tree and felt a strong pull to walk back to it. I slowed my walk and returned to it, passing again the now flat earth where we have sat on the rock and played so many times, where my mother sat just last weekend as she held the boy on her lap, sharing her paints with him. I reached up on an urging and touched the tree, and a sense of love and peace, of absolute forgiveness washed over me. The tree was reminding me to lead with my heart, not with my head and my ideas, and my heart was saying to be infinitely gentle, to always be gentle when it is possible. I walked back to the house, taking care to walk slowly as a means of keeping myself present. I watched myself alternate between moments of anger and moments of peace, as I worked to honor the tree's guidance.

Up on the porch, still holding only a tenuous grasp on the choice to deal with this situation with my heart, I knelt down to ask for more support. I remembered, out of the blue, the trip I took into town today to dispose of and also give away a large amount of stuff that has been taking up space in our house. I remembered the sense of freedom, spaciousness, joy that filled me to know I had let go of things I no longer needed and sent them out joyfully into the world.

We did not, of course, wish to be free of our rock, but this memory showed me that I can choose to experience its disappearance in the same mindset. Our instinct to keep things, to hold tightly to objects in our lives, does not serve us as well as releasing them freely into the world does. I can grumble over the trespass, the dismissal of our opinion, the absence of what we both consider to be an old friend. I can also open my heart, listen to my heart, and hear what it is saying: that we do not need that rock, any more than we need any individual objects in our lives. We need each other, and our health, food, love. The necessary things to survive. But objects outside of this description can come and go and we can choose to receive them and let them go with open hands.

I believe it prudent that we bring up the issue with our family anyway, to ensure that we do not wake to discover other cherished objects missing from our yard. But I now have the tools to do so in a measured, peaceful way, rather than with resentment or anger under my words.