Widening Circles

“I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world.” Rainer Maria Rilke

(art by Alma Thomas)

I was a very anxious and fearful child. I never felt a sense of security and belonging except when I was exploring the woods behind my house. When I was wandering amidst the maples and the oaks, the pines and the dogwoods I felt at peace that I felt as if they were saving me. I would touch their bark and thank them for their companionship. I still talk to trees. If only people were like trees, I thought. Unlike my parents, I never heard the trees fight. Unlike kids at school, the trees did not make fun of and bully me. They accepted me as I was. Unlike the church, the trees revealed the sacred without preaching about salvation and damnation. They offered their prayers in the rustle and resplendence of their leaves. The sunlight comes through them casting shadows along the woodland floor. They tell me: All is holy here. This is all the heaven you need.

To name is to know. Birds become Robins, Cardinals, Brown-headed Nuthatches, Cerulean Warblers, Wood Thrushes… Trees become loblolly pines, white ashes, boxelders, red maples, Eastern Redbuds, Oaks, Beeches… And it also meant escaping the ones I was called in anger or mockery.

The loneliness of crowds was shed like the old skin of a Eastern Kingsnake as I found myself anew in the woods - transformed. Nature does not pretend - there is no artifice - unlike people.

I escaped the world and found a new one in those woods.