A Muse On Trees

SAT., JULY 24, 1999, 6:40 AM
FARM, STUDY

As you sit here in this room you call your Study you look out, in every direction, and see trees. It is the summer season, so the leaves are plentiful. As winter comes on you will be able to see farther, but, also, more tree trunks. You are surrounded by this “gift” of Mine – trees.

Earlier this week you mused on places where you have lived, since you can remember, in this life. The muse didn’t focus on trees, but let’s do it again, with such an emphasis. You remember little about the home in Wilmington, but there was a large, climbable pepper tree in that backyard. Pine Ave. and 2673 – nothing of a tree nature to be remembered. At 2691 you had the big eucalyptus tree, which produced, in great numbers, and dropped, those little “pipe bowls,” which had to be picked up, by hand, each time you mowed the front lawn. And there was a banana tree, in a climate not hot enough for that sort of fruit production. (Yes, o son, I was with you, even in those young years, guiding you, gently, in ways best for both of us.)

Oh, there were many trees at the Gordena house, but you didn’t live there long. At 2357 there were the palm trees in front, and then the fruit trees that were planted after the house was built. But I’ll skip now to the places you’ve lived in your married life. In Stanford Village there were great old trees, but few around the apartments, individually. You planted some… and then moved on. On Piper’s Pali, again the house was new, and though there were big old trees down the front hill there were only what you planted, around the house. Greer Rd. … from scratch on a treeless plain, but you did see what you planted grow and begin to shade that small backyard. And so it was, yet again, on Casanueva… young trees, the maturity of which you never got to enjoy.

But then… So. Oakland… and big trees planted years before by others, who now have moved on. And now… the Farm… with an early tale of how these big maples were planted… by people who now have left this earth life. One large tree, close to the house, had to be cut down, as it was dying, but you have planted other young ones, and the magnolia seems to be doing well, in the front yard (though it hasn’t yet bloomed).

There is much diversity in trees… and, yes, I do need to mention your planting of the pines, now in various sites on this Farm, including Peter’s Park. Some of these are already dying, another subtle indication that death is a part of life. Yet Peter’s Park is quite a special place, and you and your sons did create it, now years ago. Diversity… an old pepper tree… a eucalyptus that forced you to a weekly “harvest”… pine trees here that now grow tall and wide… and, yes, you can glimpse Michael’s pine, which shall dominate your north view when the Maples shed their this-year’s leaves.

Trees are part of My created earth. The Garden of Eden story is one of the fruit of trees. You shall drink juice from the fruit of trees, that grow far from this area… but apples and pears are local, and you hope to enjoy some of your special pears in the fall season.

Trees provide the wood that shall warm this home in the cold months. You haven’t had to cut down healthy trees, happily, but it is a joy, for you, to gather and cut firewood. Trees have given you pleasure as you and they have lived together. As they die and become firewood they give back, yet again… and even more so as you strew the ashes, so that other trees might grow.