Redwood Trees

I listened to David Whyte speak at Mt. Madonna in California. I love what I learned about redwood trees by watching them in the fog and soft air during the breaks we had. I like the way they stand so still in the quiet morning mist. I like the way that mist condenses on the leaves into large droplets that fall to the ground around the drip-line of the tree. I like the way that young redwoods spring up as shoots from the roots of the parent tree and form a perfect circle around it – right at the drip-line where the water, distilled from the mist, falls to the ground to nurture the new young shoots. One day the taller parent tree may be lost to lightening, disease or age and when it is taken back by the earth just a circle of trees will remain.  That is the origin of a grove.

It made me think of the questions that the workshop acknowledged. The questions that are rooted at our own edges of knowing and of comfort remind me of the circle of trees that establish around the parent tree – right where the edges of the tree that stands meets everything that the tree is not. One day the parent tree may be gone forever but genetically identical trees will remain firmly rooted at exactly the place where the parent tree's own raindrops imagined them. Just like one day we may stand in that place where our own important questions have already taken root.