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Life Arts    H4'ed 9/5/24

Medicine tree


Gary Lindorff
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The shapes of old trees

Can tell us a lot about the character and powers of their medicine.

Up here where we live

We share a forest with a few other families

That we purchased collectively

Over 35 years ago.

It is our common land.

On this land there are a number of ancient maples

The oldest of which grow along some of the old walls.

Along with the walls, they mark the property boundaries

Of the bygone fields of a distant time.

During most of the19th century

Vast areas of forest were clear cut

For the production of charcoal.

(Trees were viewed as a resource

And as hiding places for Indians.)

The rocks were painstakingly removed

To create walls and pasture.

But it's not the walls or the men

(And, and most likely, whole families)

Who removed the stones

That I want to focus on here,

It is those very old trees that grow along the walls

That we call witness trees.

Some of these trees are what I call medicine trees.

(And, by the way, they don't all grow along the walls.

Some do not seem to be close to any wall,

Or natural boundary feature,

Like a running ledge or brook.

Why they were spared by the (historically documented)

Clear-cuts of the mid-19th century and 1950,

Is a mystery, which makes them even more special to me.)

Here I will describe one of these medicine trees.

It is about 150 - 200 years old and is rooted

Right on top of a wall that must be about 200 years old.

It is shaped like someone standing

Very solidly grounded. Its roots surround and embrace

The wall without having disturbed it,

So the old wall and tree occupy the exact same place

Exhibiting a kind of harmony of ancient compatibility.

But the unique medicine of this tree is higher up

Where the massive trunk divides into two enormous branches

Like a 'Y'.

Both of these branches are at least 3-4 feet in diameter

And soar another 60 feet up

Spreading into the canopy.

What is the medicine of this tree?

To discover that I would ask you to stand

As solidly as possible, spreading your legs

To form a base shaped like an isosceles triangle

Where the base angles are slightly wider than the apex.

Imagine your roots

firmly established in the earth.

Imagine your trunk translating this rootedness upward

With immeasurable confidence and self-possession

Into a grand scale of expansion and striving

into the above realm of wind and sun and rain.

After you fix your stance

Raise your arms up like the branches of this tree

And now feel the power of your stance.

If you can, imagine that you are this medicine tree

Which is teaching you how to enter into its Dreaming.

There are two other trees that I spend time with

Who have taught me how to ground

And channel my lifeforce.

I will describe them some other time.

(Article changed on Sep 05, 2024 at 10:59 AM EDT)
(Article changed on Sep 06, 2024 at 7:36 AM EDT)

(Article changed on Sep 06, 2024 at 7:38 AM EDT)

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Gary Lindorff is a poet, writer, blogger and author of five nonfiction books, three collections of poetry, "Children to the Mountain", "The Last recurrent Dream" (Two Plum Press), "Conversations with Poetry (coauthored with Tom Cowan), and (more...)
 

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