Tree
Priest
I opened my arms to the enormity of Nature’s ancient wisdom
I knelt before a congregation of elder oaks
My heart heavy with despair,
a child’s confusion was the burden I bare.
“Be still child,” they told me.
“Let go of your fear and return to your humble beginning: come home.”
I released my white-knuckle grip from the edge of reality—
I fell from the cliff of fear into the glittering golden amniotic
bath where Life bathes its dying.
Mother Nature engulfed me in her womb.
“I am dying, Mother.” I said. “Each morning, I awaken to the dried sweat of my soul’s depleted purity. It covers every inch of my body. I am undergoing a spiritual desiccation—a dehydration of my moral certainty. My body cracks and decays with every drop of innocence my pillowcase absorbs in the night. The Moon lies to me, Mother. She pulls the fleeting moisture from my tear ducts with her gravitational selfishness. Why does she steal my light and make it her own? Why does she light up the night sky while I wither in the dark?”
“You are not dying, my child,” she said. “You are being reborn.”
“The Moon does not steal that which you willingly give. As a boy, you yearned to be seen while you dreamed by your bedroom window, night after night, gazing into the infinite. She never forgot the desperate plea of your bright eyes as they started into the celestial eye of forever. She shines bright every night now with your gentle optimism. She radiates your magnetic glow for the whole galaxy to behold. You made a vow in your youth to reveal your truth to every living being.
She heard you, little one.
She pools your tears, freezes your fears, and paints a landscape with your loneliness. She shows you your light by refracting Her glow off a pristine snow covered sadness; a testament to the fragility between solitude and isolation. Each night, she kisses a pond of your tears with a dense frost to preserve, for a universal instant, the fragile preciousness your crying eyes are too blurry to see. She invites you to drink. To melt this pond and sip from your forgotten strength.
Rest now, little one.
Let me replenish your heart with the source of all vitality—let me love you.”
Courage and celebration
began to seep into my pours.
The golden truth of Nature’s
sacred cycle coursed through my
baby blue veins; my withered
body cracked like a petrified leaf
until it finally crumbled into
death’s detritus.
I lied there scattered,
formless;
delicate dust in the center
of the ancient oaks’ altar.
The eldest tree dropped an acorn into the pile of organic matter
that was once my likeness. It fed off my nutrient-dense compost,
absorbing my essence until I emerged from the shell as a young sprout.
The sunlight fed me;
The sky quenched my thirst;
The birds sang to me;
The wind rocked me to sleep;
I grew each day stronger, wiser, and gentler than before.
One night, the Moon descended from Heaven,
a magnificent, luminescent femininity forged from the galactic divine.
Her long, flowing hair bellowed as she floated to the base of my roots—
her beauty beamed and illuminated the fertile earth with an ineffable
knowing. A charm that once was and always will be.
A familiarity.
“You have grown so mighty and bold,” she said. “I last saw you as a boy, but now, in this form, you are a man. You no longer weep for your losses but rejoice in the love that surrounds you—that nourishes you. I see the knots on your bark and admire the knowledge they contain. You have learned so much from stillness. Do you wish to walk among the humans once again? Do you wish to breathe the oxygen you create?”
“Gentle Moon,” I replied, “I have basked in the soft light you radiate each night since my transformation. I understand what you wished my crying eyes to see. I gave you my light and you shared it with the stars, the forests, the oceans, and the wanderers who twirl in periwinkle flowerbeds at the peak of your glistening fullness. The crickets play music when your pale rays shine on the stage where their orchestra’s ambient symphony inspires gods to be born. You have made me audience to the quiet miracles of existence.
I n o l o n g e r f e e l d i s c o n n e c t e d;
I f e e l m y s o u l h a s r e s u r r e c t e d.
Please, release me so that I may drink from the pond your breath has frozen. Let it melt with the heat of my intrepid passion so that I may bathe in it as a new man—the faithful Servant of Spring.”
She caressed my cracked bark with a gentle slide of her hand.
My leaves danced in the air as they fell and floated to the ground,
twirling in the emptiness—
God’s ephemeral ballet.
A roaring, evanescent thunderbolt flashed down the middle of my body and split me in two like a part in the Red Sea.
My naked human body emerged from the core of my former self.
I was reborn.
I held the Moon in a
lovers embrace as we
kissed before the
petrified wooden monument,
an incubator for the sagacious
years spent learning to be;
The days spent noticing beauty
as it evolved around me
and within me;
The hours spent watching
the bloom of yellow
daffodils as they slowly
extended their puckered
lips out to kiss the sun;
The seconds spent
feeling each moment,
noticing Time as a
dramatic director who casts
hundreds of whirligigs
to airdrop from maple trees
in perfect synchronicity
and burrow themselves in
the Forest’s prolific soil—
an annual retelling of
Nature’s life story.
She walked me to the icy pond where I knelt down
and firmly placed my palms on the glassy sheet.
My heart, brimming with love,
spilled its fiery affection,
liquefying fears into a hot spring
of boldness, integrity, and intention.
I drank, bathed, and swam
in the crystal blue pool of eternal youth.
The Moon cupped her hand, dipped it into the water,
and poured the sacred liquid over my head.
In that moment, I was anointed with a
love purified from doubt;
a promise to never forget the beauty
that lies within.
She ordained me, on this day,
a holy embodiment of perennial truth—
a vehicle for communal peace,
a conduit for mystical transcendence,
a vision of rapturous joy,
an ethereal poet in the realm of life—
I am now a man, but in my heart,
I am forever a boy floating in
the glimmering waters
where my innocence
collected, drop-by-drop,
from the tears of my
years wonting in
quiet sorrow.
But with each drink,
each cleansing,
each swim,
the sorrow of old
replenishes my spirit anew…
I am hope,
I am compassion,
I am transformation,
I am a Tree Priest.
I opened my arms to the enormity of Nature’s ancient wisdom
I knelt before a congregation of elder oaks
My heart heavy with despair,
a child’s confusion was the burden I bare.
“Be still child,” they told me.
“Let go of your fear and return to your humble beginning: come home.”
I released my white-knuckle grip from the edge of reality—
I fell from the cliff of fear into the glittering golden amniotic
bath where Life bathes its dying.
Mother Nature engulfed me in her womb.
“I am dying, Mother.” I said. “Each morning, I awaken to the dried sweat of my soul’s depleted purity. It covers every inch of my body. I am undergoing a spiritual desiccation—a dehydration of my moral certainty. My body cracks and decays with every drop of innocence my pillowcase absorbs in the night. The Moon lies to me, Mother. She pulls the fleeting moisture from my tear ducts with her gravitational selfishness. Why does she steal my light and make it her own? Why does she light up the night sky while I wither in the dark?”
“You are not dying, my child,” she said. “You are being reborn.”
“The Moon does not steal that which you willingly give. As a boy, you yearned to be seen while you dreamed by your bedroom window, night after night, gazing into the infinite. She never forgot the desperate plea of your bright eyes as they started into the celestial eye of forever. She shines bright every night now with your gentle optimism. She radiates your magnetic glow for the whole galaxy to behold. You made a vow in your youth to reveal your truth to every living being.
She heard you, little one.
She pools your tears, freezes your fears, and paints a landscape with your loneliness. She shows you your light by refracting Her glow off a pristine snow covered sadness; a testament to the fragility between solitude and isolation. Each night, she kisses a pond of your tears with a dense frost to preserve, for a universal instant, the fragile preciousness your crying eyes are too blurry to see. She invites you to drink. To melt this pond and sip from your forgotten strength.
Rest now, little one.
Let me replenish your heart with the source of all vitality—let me love you.”
Courage and celebration
began to seep into my pours.
The golden truth of Nature’s
sacred cycle coursed through my
baby blue veins; my withered
body cracked like a petrified leaf
until it finally crumbled into
death’s detritus.
I lied there scattered,
formless;
delicate dust in the center
of the ancient oaks’ altar.
The eldest tree dropped an acorn into the pile of organic matter
that was once my likeness. It fed off my nutrient-dense compost,
absorbing my essence until I emerged from the shell as a young sprout.
The sunlight fed me;
The sky quenched my thirst;
The birds sang to me;
The wind rocked me to sleep;
I grew each day stronger, wiser, and gentler than before.
One night, the Moon descended from Heaven,
a magnificent, luminescent femininity forged from the galactic divine.
Her long, flowing hair bellowed as she floated to the base of my roots—
her beauty beamed and illuminated the fertile earth with an ineffable
knowing. A charm that once was and always will be.
A familiarity.
“You have grown so mighty and bold,” she said. “I last saw you as a boy, but now, in this form, you are a man. You no longer weep for your losses but rejoice in the love that surrounds you—that nourishes you. I see the knots on your bark and admire the knowledge they contain. You have learned so much from stillness. Do you wish to walk among the humans once again? Do you wish to breathe the oxygen you create?”
“Gentle Moon,” I replied, “I have basked in the soft light you radiate each night since my transformation. I understand what you wished my crying eyes to see. I gave you my light and you shared it with the stars, the forests, the oceans, and the wanderers who twirl in periwinkle flowerbeds at the peak of your glistening fullness. The crickets play music when your pale rays shine on the stage where their orchestra’s ambient symphony inspires gods to be born. You have made me audience to the quiet miracles of existence.
I n o l o n g e r f e e l d i s c o n n e c t e d;
I f e e l m y s o u l h a s r e s u r r e c t e d.
Please, release me so that I may drink from the pond your breath has frozen. Let it melt with the heat of my intrepid passion so that I may bathe in it as a new man—the faithful Servant of Spring.”
She caressed my cracked bark with a gentle slide of her hand.
My leaves danced in the air as they fell and floated to the ground,
twirling in the emptiness—
God’s ephemeral ballet.
A roaring, evanescent thunderbolt flashed down the middle of my body and split me in two like a part in the Red Sea.
My naked human body emerged from the core of my former self.
I was reborn.
I held the Moon in a
lovers embrace as we
kissed before the
petrified wooden monument,
an incubator for the sagacious
years spent learning to be;
The days spent noticing beauty
as it evolved around me
and within me;
The hours spent watching
the bloom of yellow
daffodils as they slowly
extended their puckered
lips out to kiss the sun;
The seconds spent
feeling each moment,
noticing Time as a
dramatic director who casts
hundreds of whirligigs
to airdrop from maple trees
in perfect synchronicity
and burrow themselves in
the Forest’s prolific soil—
an annual retelling of
Nature’s life story.
She walked me to the icy pond where I knelt down
and firmly placed my palms on the glassy sheet.
My heart, brimming with love,
spilled its fiery affection,
liquefying fears into a hot spring
of boldness, integrity, and intention.
I drank, bathed, and swam
in the crystal blue pool of eternal youth.
The Moon cupped her hand, dipped it into the water,
and poured the sacred liquid over my head.
In that moment, I was anointed with a
love purified from doubt;
a promise to never forget the beauty
that lies within.
She ordained me, on this day,
a holy embodiment of perennial truth—
a vehicle for communal peace,
a conduit for mystical transcendence,
a vision of rapturous joy,
an ethereal poet in the realm of life—
I am now a man, but in my heart,
I am forever a boy floating in
the glimmering waters
where my innocence
collected, drop-by-drop,
from the tears of my
years wonting in
quiet sorrow.
But with each drink,
each cleansing,
each swim,
the sorrow of old
replenishes my spirit anew…
I am hope,
I am compassion,
I am transformation,
I am a Tree Priest.
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