“And now in the woods, I once again revisit the idea of simply staying here, in the woods-with great interior freedom, and applying myself to the main business, which has nothing to do with places, and does not require a beach of pure white Caribbean sand. Only silence and a curtain of trees.” Thomas Merton, “When The Trees Say Nothing”
Jon has been talking about and quoting Thomas Merton since I met him. I often find Merton’s writing difficult to make sense of. It is too much like being in church for me. He writes in a language that I don’t understand.
Until Jon bought me Merton’s book “When The Trees Say Nothing”. It is a book of Journal entries about nature. It is in these writings by Thomas Merton that his God makes sense to me.
My Meditation Tree XXIII is for sale in my Etsy Shop, just click here.
I made more Meditation Trees, because people asked for them and because I enjoy making them.
The idea came to me when I was meditating while at the Dentist. I saw the tall sturdy tree, with the big trunk grounded in the earth. The leaves at the top were so far away, I could just make them out.
When I came up with the drawing for my tree, I included an earth energy spiral under it. You can read about and see pictures of my process making my Meditation Trees here.
When I think of my Mediation Tree, I become the tree. I can feel the earth energy coming to me through the soles of my feet. I am the grounded, towering, sturdy tree.
Maybe you can feel it too.
Some of the people I sold a Meditation Tree to hang them on their walls, place them on an altar or hold them while Meditating. A few people have bought more than one to give as a gift to friends and family.
However you use it, I hope it brings you peace and a sense of grounded balance.
My Meditation Trees are 7″x 11″ and are $40 each + $5 shipping. Each comes with four 3M Soft hangers you can stick on the back of the wall hanging. They won’t damage the fabric or your wall. The are for sale in my Etsy Shop. Just click here to see them and buy them. Each one is individually stitched and painted so they are all unique.
Or you can email me at [email protected]. I take checks, PayPal and Venmo.
This is how it works. One idea leads to another. As I was making my Meditation Trees, I saw in my mind another Meditation Tree. This one bigger made from fabric and sewn onto an old quilt. I couldn’t see the leaves, I still can’t, but I know they will come.
This morning I went looking for the ground for my tree. I pulled all the old quilts that people have sent me over the years from the top shelf where I keep them. I easily found what I was looking for and cut it to size.
What I didn’t see was the “Star” on one end of the piece I had cut. It would be the perfect placement for my Earth Energy Spiral. But it was a bit too close to the bottom. My first mistake and I’d hardly begun.
But it’s one of those mistakes that adds to the piece. Using old pieces of fabric there are always going to be imperfections. It’s one of the reasons they work for me. They bring something to the piece that I wouldn’t or couldn’t have.
taking out the stitches
My second mistake came when I sewed the extra piece of fabric on to the bottom the wrong way. I wanted to use the back of the quilt because the front of the quilt has some pale pink fabric on it. I considered if this mistake was fortuitous like the first, and decided the pale pink wouldn’t work.
So I got out my seam ripper and removed the stitches being carful of the old fabric which rips easily. But even this mistake had its purpose. It slowed me down, and reminded me not to get ahead of myself.
There is no hurry, I told myself, making my Meditation Tree will take the time it takes.
painting the back of the quilt along the hand stitching
Once that was done, and the piece sewn on correctly, I got out my fabric paint. I did some experimenting then chose a purple to paint the quilting threads of the star. I painted it on the back of the quilt so the paint will stain the hand stitching on the front.
But it wasn’t quite right. The paint was uneven. It obscured some of the star and made other parts of it stand out too much.
I wanted to the star to be subtle enough so I could stitch a spiral over it. So I worked on it some more until I came up with something that looked just right to me.
And that’s where I left it for today. Next I will hand sew the fabric tree. That needs to be in place before I do anything else.
The purple star that I will stitch my spiral over.
My Meditation Tree I is 8″x11″. It is $40 + $5 shipping and you can buy it here.
I finished sewing my Meditation Trees and now have 4 for sale in my Etsy Shop. As always, since I draw each one individually using my free motion sewing machine, they are all slightly different.
Each is made on a tea stained piece of cotton fabric. Then I stitch the tree and earth energy spiral. The last thing I do is paint the leaves.
My Meditation Tree, is based on an image I saw while meditating. A towering tree, with a wide grounded trunk. Leaves like my fluttering mind. And earth energy begin pulled up the roots.
I’ve already sold 13 Meditation Trees (a good number).
One person said she will place it on her lap while she meditates, another will hang it on the wall in the Meditation Space in her home. Vicki sent me the photo below of hers. For her it’s a reminder to practice meditation.
Each Meditation Tree is about 8″x11″. They come with four 3M soft hangers that attach to the fabric and the wall without leaving a mark.
I peer into the cavern of the pine whose center is softly rotting. I go there in my mind.
A round room with earthy yellow walls and a rusty orange, wood-dust floor. I know how it feels on the bottom of my bare feet. I’m convinced this is where the idea for an orange shag carpet came from, before it was something to jeer at.
I look up but there is no roof, just darkness.
There are many places inside the small cave that I can’t see. Places blocked by flat stalagmite’s of wood, harder than the rest, that haven’t crumbled yet.
I imagine what might be behind them.
A stairway leading up and down the outer core of the tree. It opens onto another space filled with acorns and hickory nuts or leads outside to branches where birds roost. One wooden wall blocks the wind and has a woodpecker hole high up for the smoke from a camp fire.
” It grows warmer, until the water that gathers in the hoof prints of the deer no longer freezes in the night. Now, in the place that was once the belly of the man who offered the apple to the woman, one of the apple seeds, sheltered in the shattered rib cage, breaks its coat, drops a root into the soil, and lifts a pair of pale-green cotyledons. A shoot rises, thickens, seeks the bars of light above it, and gently parts the fifth and sixth ribs that once guarded the dead mans meager heart.” “The sapling grows through summer. By the end of August, it has eighteen leaves and is the same height as the haunches of a lynx. ” from North Woods by Daniel Mason
I don’t think I will every look at an apple tree the same again after reading Daniel Mason’s description of one that grows from the belly of dead man in his book North Woods.
The quote above is just a part of the description of the process of what becomes of the dead mans body and the apple seed he swallowed just before he died.
Mason writes about what should be awful, even horrifying, as so natural, so matter-of-factly beautiful, I found it sublime.
One of the reasons I believe that I felt so strongly when I read this is that since I began walking in our Orphaned Woods and really seeing what was in front of me, I know from personal experience what he is writing about. I am familiar with the trees and viburnum, I’ve seen the foam that gathers on the truck of the pine trees when it rains. I know how the sun touches certain small places to help sprout a seed. How the snow freezes and melts in the hoof print of a deer.
His descriptions and comparisons are all contained within this particular ecosystem. Which leaves me with the feeling of the circling round and round, the pattern of life, death, life, that I witness with each walk I take.
And, for me, the idea of my dead body literally being the place where a tree could sprout from brings me great comfort. It is my idea of heaven, of life everlasting.
The first thing I do in the morning is let the dogs out and follow them around picking up their poop. Fate usually bring me the frisbee. Sometimes I throw it, other times I tell her it’s pooping time, so get busy.
Many of the mornings little miracles occur behind my studio, where the giant maple and Bud rule.
This morning Asher and Suzy sat facing each other as the sun threw shadows and pale orange light through the bare branches of the apple tree.
I felt as if I got to peer into their world a bit. To see them as they are with each other without my presence to distract.
The dead branches on the old maple in the side yard are a favorite place for many different birds to perch including Bald Eagles and Ravens.
Although the Eagles come and go, the Raven is a regular.
In the mornings the raven is often on one of the many branches that I imagine are a good lookout as well as a good place to project her call from.
I recorded the raven at two different times, making three different calls. The first call I expected, the second I had heard and seen before, the third was new to me.
Each video is only a few seconds long. Come listen and watch…
Yesterday, a few hours after I put the Polyphemus moth on the cherry tree, I went back to look for her.
It took me a while to find her even though she was just a few inches from where I left her. Now she had her wings folded up and blended in so well, I doubt even a bird would see her.
Today I looked for her a few times but wasn’t able to find her. Perhaps she moved even further up the tree or found a better place to lay her eggs.
Or maybe she was right in front of me and I just couldn’t see her.
I search for the frog on the apple tree. Surely a better place to hide than the metal gate.
I circle the tree inspecting the craggy bark, the same texture as the frog’s skin. I peer high into the branches, the canopy of leaves turning the light green. I touch the silvery moss, too plush to be a frog. I squat, my knees jutting out on either side of me (like a frog), and poke my head into the yoni hole in the tree’s trunk, a cave of rotting stalactites and stalagmites.
I see the frog again and again, but it is nowhere to be found.
