This summer I had a profound awakening… a reconnection with the roots of who I truly am. My spiritual teacher took me to an island of paper birch trees on a northern lake in the boreal forest… asked me to press my cheek up to the cool bark & to listen to the trees talking. Skeptical, I approached. There were thirty trees…. each forty years old… They were lean…. muscular…. tall & very very white. At first I though I was simply hearing the wind in the oscillating leaves. Wind after all is not the way a tree would talk. Wind is wind. Suddenly I was transformed. The trees swayed & danced. The roots spread below me… the branches above caressed each to each.The trees were talking all along… on that island where we seldom go. The Creation is infinitely more beautiful & intricate than I ever knew. How could I be so ignorant? Human language is so limited by its definitions & labels. Of course trees talk to each other. How arrogant to think that language is some human prerogative. The only way to hear the speech of trees… or ants…. or loons… or cats…. is for once & for all to just stop talking… to be silent … & to hear….. to hear the true language of the Universe. It is all around, below, above …. within.
Wow the texture of the paint really looks like birch bark! This is a very ethereal image with the moonlight in the snow among the birch. Awesome as always sir!
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