The trees are singing. I realized this as I moved past the little group of trees at the park, the ones inside the path on the south side,—but they are singing in the wind, singing a beautiful, bittersweet song of autumn and the falling and turning of leaves, the coming of winter and sleep,—and I have always heard this, but not consciously, not with clarity and attention, and I always felt overjoyed in spring when they roused, and ambiguous in autumn and, well, and in winter. But the choruses sing out, and I can hear them, and they are beautiful and haunting—the song fading as winter comes down, until a whisper leads into silence, and I think I always felt a little struck by that silence—maddened by the oppressive lack of their chorus—
—I do not think they lament the coming of the cold. They mark the closing of the year, the coming of their rest, and they prepare for sleep. But they do not lament. I yearn to hear them, yearn for the song to return in spring—
But I know I’ve always heard them, like I’ve heard the call of Dana and the Morrigan. And that realization is a moment of magic and attention and wonder that makes this day fantastic.
They sing in their clusters, copses, woods, and choruses, and the sun bathes us all in slanting light. Elethis sings, too, and I wonder—it is a beautiful day, especially having managed to escape outside.
The trees bridge the lower, middle, and higher worlds, and part of the secret is how they do so. And their descent into the LW puts the lie to so much of the deathly associations and hellish associations we’ve attached to the LW, [that that is all the LW is about], even if much of what happens there remains hidden to casual gaze.
That said, Samhain offers an opportunity to seek out teaching experiences and dreams about the LW—
But trees also point me, I think, to further lessons on bridging the Worlds, in ascending to the heights—even as one anchors and grounds. The living corporeality and song and wonder—but also the birds (so many ravens, of late), and the interconnectedness of the natural and beyond into the Otherworlds—
—I have considered before how the forests of the world also speak and dream into this realm’s noosphere, its dreaming, and we can analogize the planet’s breathing on how forests process O2 and CO2 at night and day. And there is something in that—grounding that gladdens me and makes me feel empowered, relaxed, wry, and attentive.
I want to get out and find woods, hills, mountains, and more.
MW has started to grow a bit of a beard, laying claim to the meme complex I evoked him out of.
There’s something about being buoyed aloft, floating and soaring—fish, planes, birds, clouds, thoughts, selves—densities and buoyancy and winds, and this has something to do with rising—
—we weigh ourselves down, we sink and are bent, fall, but we can find support and life and light and the energy and joy to do so—something I felt, saw, heard, experienced in the dreaming attention—
—but there is something also in the silence, when we have to confront our own thoughts and hearts and how we sustain and lift ourselves up—
—rise, stand—
—islands of—experience that sail in the skies in the HW, like clouds drifting and deforming and changing—
—how do we change? How do I?
Image: Tall Trees by Ernst Vikne