Branching out

I don’t really believe this happened just because I’m currently reading Finding the Mother Tree. On the other hand, I’m not foolhardy enough to completely disregard the possibility that Mother Nature arranged conditions to reward my reading habits. A couple of days ago, after several outrageous downpours, pine trees on the hill behind our house displayed halos. See for yourself. (There’s a second tree glowing near the base of the bird house pole.)

small pine trees with halo

Photo by J. Harrington

Creating the halo effect no doubt took the right amount, and angle, of sunlight, the proper amount of rain, someone to notice and take a picture, and who knows what other factors, to all come together at the same time and in the same place. Coincidence or karma, take your pick, but I’m becoming a believer in the wood wide web.

Today, for the first time this season, I mowed the front yard. The Better Half and I are working on making it more pollinator friendly, so last spring I did the prep and she seeded with a clover-rye(?) mix. What grass had been there was rapidly being overgrown with wild violets, which continue to spread. Much of the pre-mow greenery appeared to be violet leaves. I was concerned that mowing the taller violet leaves would end up with the yard looking baldish. I’m pleased to report my concerns were misplaced. With the mower set to mulch and the cut height set high, the post-mow yard still looks nicely green and a bit neater. Slowly but surely I’m becoming a practical, as well as an intellectual, hypothetical, theoretical, environmentalist. If you remember George Peppard in the old tv series The A-Team, “I love it when a plan comes together!”

When I am among the trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

Mary Oliver

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