Reflections on a Tree

I am not like a tree. They are so Other to me. A tree stays in one place its whole life (well, most trees—they certainly don’t like to move). I, on the other hand, have to move a lot, I have no roots and no plot of land to call home. No same sky where I watch the sun set and rise again. No same horizon to frame my view. I move about every three years my whole life. Home is wherever the military says it will be next. And there is always a next. In this way, I have seen many trees throughout my life. My life walks past them like a path and together they are like a forest to me. They are home and will always be home. I am always trying to find home. I want to be like a tree. I want to plant my roots into the earth; I want to find some sacred ground from which my life can spring. I want to touch the sky, to know what it feels like to be in heaven and earth at the same time. I want to be protected from the scary people who live in strange houses in the woods, where little children are locked up and eaten for following bread crumbs. The trees see everything. They are the silent witnesses to all of our journeys.

Childhood Tree

(from the memoir i'm working on...)

There is a tree in my backyard. Its branches bend so low I can reach my arms around them and walk my feet up the trunk. I climb high enough to feel the rush of fear, to feel the breeze on my face, my hair whipping and turning like the leaves dancing around me. Up in the tree I am silent. I am still, (unlike when I am in the supermarket with my mother where I run up and down the aisles knocking cereal boxes off of the shelves and get yelled at by the store manager). In the stillness I hear another part of me, the quiet one, and I hear the birds, the grasses, the branches bending and creaking. I smell the warm summer air, fresh cut lawns, and flowers on the wind. I breathe it all into my fingers and toes. Up in the tree I watch the clouds, the way they change, the way the whole sky becomes a movie if you only take the time to see it. If I knew anything about God, it had something to do with being in a tree.

Energy for a New Year

Painting by Lisa Hunt

I had a dream over Christmas break: I am in the woods and I stumble upon these beautiful deer that stand like an art exhibit in the woods. They are made of bent and gnarled twigs, like the ones I love and collect and use to decorate my home.

On my way to visit my analysts and tell her about the deer made of sticks, I spot two very alive and frightened deer, graceful and fidgety in the front lawn of a small suburban home.

All these deer feel sychronistic. (And maybe even more so since I've just watched several Christmas movies with reindeer too).

My analyst reads to me from Jean Bolen's book, "Goddesses in Everywoman," and we confirm that the deer is associated with the Goddess Artemis. The thing that strikes me most is this, "Artemis as Goddess of the Hunt and Goddess of the Moon was a personification of an independent feminine spirit. The archetype she represents enables a woman to seek her own goals on terrain of her own choosing." (Harper Perennial(c) 1984, p. 49).

As I begin 2010, I plan to meet with a creative writing consultant, to put good time and energy into writing a memoir. I'm happy to be greeted by Artemis and ask her help as I pursue the goal of finding and expressing my voice.