You may remember a few posts ago I wrote about my listening tree, the tree with ears that I discovered on our monastery grounds. It became one of my sacred sites and when I could find the time I went there to listen. Sadly, two days after I shared 'my listening tree' with you the storms came with their raging winds and fierce lightning and split my dear tree wide open. I was away from home and one of our Sisters e-mailed me with this dreadful message. Is it right, I thought, for me to be mourning a tree when people have lost lives and homes? Yes, when you've loved something and named it, it is yours in a special way. All mourning is to be honored.
A friend shared with me this poem by Charles Mungoshi. In a way it a ritual for mourning. A ritual for surrendering and receiving again. It tells me what to do--
WHAT TO DO
Take out all your belongings--
Furniture, clothes, crockery--
All you have since held dear
Take them all out
And return them to the forest.
Now, bring in the sky
The mountains, distant views
Of anything, the rivers, trees,
Boulders; the animals, birds
And insects--
Set them loose in your room.
Now--
Kneel down anywhere
And give thanks.
-Charles Mungoshi
from The Milkman Doesn't Only Deliver Milk
Baobab Books, Harare, 1998
And so I kneel before the remains of my tree giving thanks for everything and I wonder: In spite of its very wounded state, is it still listening.
THE LISTENING TREE
