The tree welcomed me into its embrace.
Walking along, breathing in the autumn landscape, I glanced over. Seeing that golden cascade of leaves, I paused. Then I stopped walking altogether and I just stood there quietly. Waiting and observing.
A bit like momentum. Or, something besides me animating my feet. Not words in my brain, but some tug that led me step by step closer to that tree. And I understood that the tree was inviting me in …
asking me to come closer
encouraging me to climb in underneath its limbs
welcoming me into its embrace
As I drew ever closer, I took in the vastness of its branches, their outward curl at the bottom – a hoop skirt of leaves.
I heard myself whisper aloud, “Yes, thank you. I would love to enter in.”
I ducked my head under a low limb and entered into the tree’s inner sanctum. The instant I entered, the lighting shifted; the ambiance underneath the limbs was markedly yellow, warmer, darker but also - strangely - more luminescent than outside the tree.
Looking up, I took a very long heart-sip of that tree: individual leaf shapes, the branches dancing downward, the limbs’ ability to outline puzzle pieces of the blue sky above, the gentle music of breezes shivering the foliage. Is it okay to write that I fell in love again, again, again with a tree? That tree. In that moment of that particular yesterday.
I stayed there a while with my new beloved: admiring, inhaling the Earthy scent, bowing in reverence, photographing him.
Praying some words of gratitude, I retreated. And to playfully try for the effect again, I stood just outside her limbs, and then stepped inside – over and over. Each time it was the same - and as powerful as the first entry:
saffron robes of the sacred compassionately coloring the world.
All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2019 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
