“Every walk in the forest is like taking a shower in oxygen.”
― Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret World
Several years ago, in the bareness of late winter, when the days were starting the lengthen, just a little, but it was still cold, and the trees were still exposed in their pure form I finished the book, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from A Secret World by Peter Wohlleben.
Trees felt magical as I learned about how they communicate and care for nearby trees. I learned about the deep, unseen ways that roots connect. I discovered how trees send messages through fungus and chemical changes. When one tree starts to host damaging beetles, it sends chemical messages to the other trees, which causes them to undergo chemical changes to make their bark less tasty. One tree will sacrifice itself to the beetles to save the rest. How older trees when they die will send all of their stores of energy through their roots to provide a jump start for the younger trees.
“But we shouldn't be concerned about trees purely for material reasons, we should also care about them because of the little puzzles and wonders they present us with. Under the canopy of the trees, daily dramas and moving love stories are played out. Here is the last remaining piece of Nature, right on our doorstep, where adventures are to be experienced and secrets discovered. And who knows, perhaps one day the language of trees will eventually be deciphered, giving us the raw material for further amazing stories. Until then, when you take your next walk in the forest, give free rein to your imagination-in many cases, what you imagine is not so far removed from reality, after all!”
― Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World
Inspired by all I had learned about trees I paused before an old tree, among a grove of trees that line Dry Creek right behind my house. I knew it was important to find old trees, among trees, not the sad, lonely trees that line our streets. I stood before a huge, rough tree, that split into many directions, and let my mind rehearse how trees grow, communicate, and work together in the world. I noticed the hardy mid-winter birds singing from branch to branch. After a few minutes of seeing the tree, I brought my hands to my heart in prayer, bowed my head, and said, “I bid you, peace-the Christ, in me bows to the Christ in you.” The exact instant I unfolded my hands and started to turn away from the tree a deep, guttural croak sang out from the tree. I spun back to the tree. Did the tree just bid me peace in return?
Yes. I believed at that moment and continue to know in my depth that I shared a profound moment of peace with a tree.
Passing the Peace was a new practice we learned when we started attending an Episcopal church. In the middle of every service, the celebrant raises her hands and says, “The Peace of the Lord be with you.” After the pronouncement, the whole congregation spends a few minutes passing the peace. It’s not a time to socialize and talk about the weather. You say, “The Peace of the Lord be with you” and the other returns, “And also with you.” or you just say “Peace.” The practice of passing the peace has changed my life. Sure, it felt really strange at first. Saying “peace” and having “peace” spoken to me does something at my core. Peace, Peace, Peace, Peace.
Today, the fourth Sunday of Advent is, among many remembrances, a reminder of peace.
Peace is not the absence of conflict, it’s wholeness, not conformity, but unity. Where all the different pieces have a place. It’s like a puzzle, it’s not a puzzle if every piece is the same, it’s a puzzle when all the different shaped and colored pieces have found their place in the whole.
May you find yourself held in peace.
May your presence impart peace.
In the hustle and buzz of the week, may you find wholeness and calm in unexpected places.
May you find yourself breathing out peace and breathing in peace.
Practice Passing the Peace: When you see a tree or hearty winter bird, a person open carrying a gun at Walmart, or the person who challenges you to your core, or a stressed-out mom with crying kids, pause, and say in your heart, I bid you peace. Just one time in the coming week find someone or something to bid your peace to. It’s a quiet practice, but a profound practice.
I think I finished my favorite book of 2021 this week! The book was mentioned on a reading podcast I listen to among the thirty-plus booked mentioned on that particular podcast this one caught my ear. I tracked it down and within the first few pages, I started to wonder if I had found my favorite book of 2021.
A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
The author became obsessed with an ancient autobiographical Irish poem. It’s her story of motherhood and quotidian home-keeping intermixed with finding more about the mostly lost to history women who wrote the poem. It’s about the power of feminine text (as the author calls them) and her passionate, obsessive some might say need to reclaim a feminine voice by a feminine voice. (She notices that most of the translation and history on this ancient poem were done by academic men, what might a woman understand about a feminine text that a male might miss? Spoiler: It turns out a lot.) Doireann Ni Ghriofa is a poet. The book is poetic, strange, and powerful. I loved this book. I found myself NOT wanting to finish it, because it was so magical and beautiful.
There was a really unique overlap between A Ghost in the Throat and Cloud Cuckoo Land. Both works, one autobiographical and one fiction, are about the power of an ancient text on modern life. They both explore how words cross time and history, how stories cross generations and continue to work. I’m so thankful I read both this year. They complement each other in a really interesting way.
“literature composed by women was stored not in books but in female bodies, living repositories of poetry and song. I have come across a line of argument in my reading, which posits that, due to the inherent fallibility of memory and the imperfect human vessels that held it, the Caoineadh cannot be considered a work of single authorship. Rather, the theory goes, it must be considered collage, or, perhaps, a folky reworking of older keens. This, to me --- in the brazen audacity of one positioned far from the tall walls of the university --- feels like a male assertion pressed upon a female text. After all, the etymology of the word ‘text’ lies in the Latin verby ‘texere’: to weave, to fuse, to braid. The Caoineadh form belongs to a literary genre worked and woven by women, entwining strands of female voices that were carried in female bodies, a phenomenon that seems to me cause for wonder and admiration, rather than suspicion of authorship.”
― Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat
I try and pay attention to words or phrases that stand out to me in my reading and listening. There is a spiritual practice called Florliledgium that collects short, interesting pieces {words that “sparkle” up} and put them together. This is kind of like that. Watching for things that sparkle. Gathering them and seeing how they work together and what message, mantra, or new idea might arise.)
A Practice:
Read slowly.
Notice if a word or phrase stands out to you.
How do the words make you feel?
Is there an invitation?
(I’m sharing in italics the lines that stand out to me in these passages. Maybe it’s the same, or maybe it’s different, there is much food for thought in each of these passages)
“So, in the case of trees, being old doesn't mean being weak, bowed, and fragile. Quite the opposite, it means being full of energy and highly productive. This means elders are markedly more productive than young whippersnappers, and when it comes to climate change, they are important allies for human beings.”
― Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World
“We cannot know from whose mouths the echoes of our lives will chime.”
― Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat
“Never in this quest have I found a simple answer; every lead is always a prelude to more questions.”
― Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat
“Remember this lesson: in every page there are undrawn women, each waiting in her own particular silence.”
― Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat
“The trees in a forest care for each other, sometimes even going so far as to nourish the stump of a felled tree for centuries after it was cut down by feeding it sugars and other nutrients, and so keeping it alive. Only some stumps are thus nourished. Perhaps they are the parents of the trees that make up the forest of today.”
― Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret World
