Oh Almighty Oak

Oh Almighty Oak
With stately stillness, the branches from your trunk are like outstretched arms with palms facing upward.
This reminds me of that part in the Mass where the priests of my childhood stretched out their arms with palms facing towards heaven saying: 
“Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor are yours almighty Father, forever and ever, Amen.”

Oh Almighty Oak
You have been ordained and are anything but ordinary.
You are a high priest with low deep roots, a sacred configuration of branches above and below growing in two directions.
As above so below.

Oh Almighty Oak
The large bowl water fountain near your trunk forms circular patterns as it pulsates--a liquid labyrinth.
The birds baptize themselves and fly up to your branches to sing your praises.
All glory and honor is yours Almighty Oak, forever and ever, Amen.

—R.B. Bojan

Intention

Slowing, stopping, looking deeply

Turning towards stillness

Sensing source, sensing center.

Taking care, giving care

I am here for you;

I hear you.

We are here in the present moment. We have arrived.

So let us just sit back and let the breath lead us.

Let us just be here.

Let us just be aware.

Let us just be.


—R.B. Bojan

Centennial Rib Cage Oak Tree

The spreading wings of the centennial rib cage oak tree,

Planted prior to the house existing in an embryonic dream cluster,

Shelters paisley winged doves who occasionally cool off

In the bubbling brook, green moss stone rippled birdbath.

A green inch worm hovers,

Hangs as in a lotus position in the expansive undercurrent,

Suspended, absorbs the animated conversation of the two gardeners

Discussing the merits of creativity and how it must be

Carefully sustained in order to produce the ripened blossom

And meaningful tasting fruit, like the green leaf vegetables

Maturing in the deep dug adjacent plot.

—Rupert Hopkins

Ordaining the Big Oak Tree

We ordained the big oak tree tonight. I felt a little funny about being part of that ceremony. That beautiful old oak tree is kind of like a wood Buddha from the 12th century. It has been around far longer that we have, and has experienced many persuasions over the century(s) that it has lived.

What about its choice? Is this like the Mormons baptizing everyone and their brother? Do we have that right to determine what someone should believe? Should we even baptize a child? Are we regulating its mind before it has the ability to say boo?

Photo by Scott Shaevel

Maybe I could sneak over to the tree some night and defrock it. I kind of liked the lack of preferences of that tree. How it reaches out in a myriad of directions giving love to all sentient beings, even those in a blade of grass mentioned in the sutra that we read at the ordination. Maybe, just maybe, that is what the tree is contemplating when it isn't struggling with challenging elements and people.

When I read this to my Zen Writing group, Bill pointed out that when the Zen center moved into our current temple that they saw that the tree was dying and both petitioned the city to move a sidewalk and changed the landscaping to give the tree more water. I started to feel that the tree might now have some major affinity with Zen. I hope so.

After our meeting, I spoke with Scott about the tree. He suggested that it might be a Buddhist for a while, but then, when its tenants change, it might adopt another persuasion. That sounds good to me.

This morning I found a paper on tree ordination in Thailand: http://tinyurl.com/m5tqzl9 Here is the abstract of the paper:

“Abstract: The symbolic ordination of trees as monks in Thailand is widely perceived in Western scholarship to be proof of the power of Buddhism to spur ecological thought. However, a closer analysis of tree ordination demonstrates that it is not primarily about Buddhist teaching, but rather is an invented tradition based on the sanctity of Thai Buddhist symbols as well as those of spirit worship and the monarchy. Tree ordinations performed by non-Buddhist minorities in Thailand do not demonstrate a religious commitment but rather a political one.”

In retrospect, I like that we ordained the tree. We take for granted much of our environment that treats us so well.

Photo by Scott Shaevel

Loving Things Equally

My father was able to love many things equally. He loved so many things that we had a two car garage that never had a car in it.

As a boy I would clamber around in the dark and dust and find things like ancient baseball gloves or WWII ribbons or patches. When I would trot something out, my father would tell me the story behind it, giving me glimpses into his life. The baseball glove for, instance, was his when he was young and athletic, wanting to try out for a team, but his father, my grandfather, who was a Methodist minister, forbade him because gambling had been associated with baseball and he didn’t want my father around it.

He still had his army uniform and mess kit from WWII, and he would tell me about his experiences of basic training and his different jobs as a staff sergeant. He was never in combat but saw a lot of the states by train while escorting AWOL soldiers back to their bases.

Each item had a story, even the old furniture of long dead relatives.

As he lay close to death in a hospital bed, he looked at me and said, “You know, I never got to clean the garage.” He was so sincerely regretful that I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Now my garage is a museum of my past, my kid’s past, and, yes, even his past. I still have his uniform, some letters he wrote to my mother before they were married and his old slide projectors that he would use to torment us by showing vacation pictures on a sheet tacked on the dining room wall.

But you know, I can get a car in my garage-my wife’s!

—Robert Porter

For Now

Relaxed and sipping tea

                                    I ponder

                                                 thoughts of the day

                                                                                while

                                                                                        they

                                                                                              fall

                                                                                                   randomly

                                                                                    like

                                                                                         silent

                                                                          snowflake

                                                              cushions

                                                                           to the                                     

                                                                                     ground

where they mix

                       with

                              cushioned thoughts from the past.

I shed my shoes

                         and

                              walk across them

                                                        feeling their

                                                                           softness

                                                                                        and

                                                                               gentle massage

and

      I am assured

                          this                            

                               is

                                 my

                                    path

                                          for

                                              now.

                                                                                                 For Now 

                                                                                                 —karen smith

                                                                                                 2014

Winter Soup

Running in from outside, breathless and pink cheeked,
The girl holds the bowl of soup in two small hands.
Her chilled face tingles in the rising savory steam.
Closing her eyes, she drinks deep the golden miso.
“Yum,” she says, “it warms me all the way to my toes.”
In a swift, graceful moment, she puts down the bowl
And flies out the door to an ice crystal world.

The black shadows of memory draw lines over my mood.
A white winter sun outside is high and cold.
Sitting at the kitchen table, bundled up,
I look out the window to the hard frozen ground.
The soup tastes salty and bland and leaves me still empty.
Blowing on my fingers, I think, “When did I forget how to play?”
“How did I learn to feel cold in winter?”

—G. Elizabeth Law

Collage (AJ Bunyard)

Introduction

The writers in JustThis look at Spring this issue. Spring is birth, they say; find hope in its new life, its beginning. But spring has in it both blossom and thorn, and beginning implies ending, the great cycle of life. Though we may rejoice in spring, we turn to that which underlies it. Spring is “the entire world acting through itself” in each moment. We can understand it as constantly manifesting. We can understand it as a place, a not-place, from which life comes, a tender center “where we are guided to each other.” We practice, we let it manifest.

Spring Triptych (Bruce Smith)

I

Such a hard thing
(frightening, sad)
is turning off
the hot water
in the shower
    in the morning
        in Winter.

II

Spring is an unexpected snow storm,
a misty cold morning rush hour
halted by a procession of geese.

III

Against the window I survey
a shelf of cups and trays filled
with a moist, speckled brown
and see (imagine, hope?)
minute flecks of green
thrusting upward
through dense dirt;
yearning for sun
like sad spirits raised
from dead depression;
pushing on ‘gainst hope and reason
toward a future brighter.

Tell me, what creates the sprout—
who stoops so low as
to inspire, point out
what to do and where to go?
what voice calls, “Now! Rise!”

A child, a witness to Spring,
I’m humbled to the roots:
once again struck dumb with awe
by this miracle predictable and common;
moved to ecstatic, frightful worship
of the seed.

Visit Bruce's blog Write Learning

Meltdown (Kim Mosley)

What ee called in just spring I call “meltdown.” His was a celebration for the balloonman, who “whistled far and wee,” while mine is lamenting the possible end of winter. The frog will wake up and notice that his limbs are a little stiff like the balloon man who is first lame and then goat-footed. The fish will become hungry and notice that there are not yet insects or vegetation to feed upon. The ice will disappear in the pond, never to be seen again. My heroic neighbor, an airplane gunner in WWII, will rise up from his easy chair to mow the leaves. Spring is not all that it is made up to be, but in a pinch, I'll take it.

Bunny Run #2 (Amy Lindsay-Joynt)

This is what comes to mind when I think about spring/fertility reproduction growth renewal and of course love. 

The Roots and Shoots of Requiem (Keigetsu Heather Martin)

Good and evil have no self nature.
Holy and unholy are empty names.
In front of the door is the land of stillness and quiet;
Spring comes, grass grows by itself.
~ Master Seung Sahn

It was winter when we moved in, and the grass was all dead. Just as the masters assured me, however, spring came, and the grass grew by itself.

There were a thousand kinds of birds, strange little wildflowers, horned lizards and roadrunners. My favorites were the black swallowtail butterflies whose bizarre, maroon-and-orange horned caterpillars feasted on the tiny pipevines growing here and there in the lawn. The previous owner had been inattentive though, and the heartiest-looking grass soon turned out to be sandburs. They were thriving right where we walked of course, robust with the advantages of spilled garden soil and rainwater pooling from the sidewalk. I pulled off the seeds from time to time in passing from the house to the car, silently cursing the last owner for his laziness, with the expectation they would soon die without having managed to re-seed. When they persisted, I started pulling them up from the roots by hand. I paid for it with pricked fingers, and for each I pulled, five grew back around the edges of the old plant. It wasn't long before I started finding them spreading to the open, sunny part of the yard. My little fellow fell one day and stood up screaming, with several burs in his soft baby hands. Pulling them out was agony, and they left angry red spots for days.

That's when I got the shovel.

Their blades looked so much like the surrounding grass that I could only spot them by their evil seeds. I would follow a cluster back to the center of the plant, feel around the edges to find its full shape, and dig. Easy enough -- they were shallowly rooted. The path I walked every day was finally clear, and they didn't re-sprout...until the following spring.

I could see the burs growing in the neighbors' yards hanging through the fences and spreading their malignant germs right into mine. I watched the cats saunter home, casually plucking burs from their fur and dropping them in their favorite bathing spots. There's no controlling that, even if you don't own cats. Mowing more often just made them send out creepers low to the ground, seeding as much as ever. I kept digging, silently cursing both the neighbors and the cats for thoughtlessly undoing my hard work. It was truly disheartening to turn my attention to a disused and shady part of the yard one day, to find that burs actually do best in parched, ignored places, where they grow deep roots and tangle themselves into a dense carpet of corruption; I was just looking in the sunny, well-traveled areas first. Most of the people who saw what I was doing shook their heads and chuckled a little, saying something like, "Good luck with that," but not always meaning it. Quite a few told me there was no way but poison. "Or fire," they might add with a grin. A few though, nodded knowingly and offered some hint of encouragement: a certain digging tool, perseverance....that would let me keep the pipevines and caterpillars while ripping out those neglected spots. So, I kept at it.

Every time the boy got stuck, it deepened my hatred of the burs. I was doing it for him, but I spent hours digging in grim determination until he had to whine for me to stop and play with him. In a hurry now, in any spare minute I grabbed at them in fury, sometimes accidentally tearing at the grass I wanted to keep, and got jabbed so many times that I developed an allergy to their barbs. My fingers would swell so much that they were painful and difficult to use. I tried gloves, but the burs went right through them, and they dampened my ability to feel for the edges. The third year, I found new burs sprouting in the exact places where I had dug them up before. By paying close attention, I discovered dried seeds were clinging to the base of the plants, and by digging in a frenzy, I was actually planting them for the following season.

Those were my burs. Not the the previous owner's, not the neighbors, not the cats wandering through. Mine. No denying it.I may have cursed out loud that time.

So I slowed down. It took a good while, but I learned to rest, to balance my time, to feel for the edges gently to spare my fingers. I learned to discern sprouting burs among the grass and pipevines even before they bore fruit. I sifted carefully, carefully through the dirt to find waiting seeds. As I worked, I stopped noticing the origin of the seeds, ceased panicking every time the boy found a bur with the sole of his foot, and didn't think much about whether there was hope for eradication. I began to notice the radiant green of the new shoots. I wondered at their fecundity and hardiness and tenacity under almost every condition. I have a clear memory of sitting in awe of one plant in particular, with admiration of the elegant curve of its leaves, the delicacy of its spines, subtly tinged a beautiful purple at the base -- so sharp, and so perfectly suited for their purpose. And then, with great appreciation and reverence, I dug it up by the roots.