When old dreams die

Spring has appeared like a new mural in the street gallery.  Leaves are falling like rain and while that may seem typical of autumn, here in Brisbane, it’s what spring does.  

The dried leaves of winter have decided to reconnect with mother earth.  I just swept some up from my little courtyard.

Uncharacteristically, there’s a cold wind blustering through and it's caught many of us unawares.  It's understandable. 

You look out your cozy dwelling and delight at the new leaves almost iridescent with golden sunlight while the sky beams a remarkable blue.  But step outside and the cold wind bites you with little hesitation.  Ouch!

I’ve never felt this way about spring before but I am feeling restless.  And yes, it is about spring for even though it is new and fresh and promising, I find myself standing still with a heart full of dying dreams.  

This spring is making me feel anxious.  No, I am not blaming it at all or holding it responsible.  I’m just saying that while it is offering me so much, I feel like I’ve been turned over like the page of winter in a book of seasons.  

I’m looking strangely wistfully at this new season and smelling the stale odor of these dying dreams of mine.  Why, I wonder, a little bewildered.

I think I know.  (Oh, don’t I love the process of writing for it brings to light what can hide in the shadows of familiar thoughts!)

I think they aren’t big enough anymore.  They no longer inspire me for they do not see enough of the largeness and grandeur of my spirit.  And that being so, I am now happy to let them die peacefully.

They’ve served their purpose.  They've kept me company through winter and like perfect gentlemen, they’re departing without overstaying their welcome.  

Thank you my gorgeous dreams of winter.  Thank you for keeping me warm and dancing with me throughout that season.  Thank you for walking me home.  And thank you for leaving so gracefully.

So, here I am spring, emboldened by your vibrant colors and unexpectedly cold winds.  Your candor is not wasted on me.  I shall rise to the occasion and fill your presence with mine. 

Like you, I’ll wear my bright colors and tease the air with fresh perfumes.  Like your new birds, I’ll sing and speak with enthusiasm and boldness.  And like the jacaranda that spreads its purple flowers softly across its branches and over the ground, I’ll spread my intentions and dreams softly across the universe.

Should we observe rituals before cutting down a tree?

A customer came into my store yesterday wearing a tee-shirt with a picture of a tree through which there were three horizontal lines marked Past, Present and Future. 

 Image from Threadibles

The top, green part represents the condition of trees, and by implication, the condition of our planet in the past.  The middle bit represents their current declining circumstance and the bottom bit their fate if business as usual rules.

It prompted a conversation in which he and his wife lamented the chopping down of a native tree in their body-corporate managed residential complex.  This, the man said, with deep emotion, despite pleas not to.  He was feeling particularly discouraged about the fate of our environment but managed to ask me if I had an affinity for trees.

Do I ever!  I shared with him two things that reflect my affinity with trees.  The first was that, as a child, I spent countless hours sitting on my back doorstep absorbed in the presence of the graceful and majestic trees that lined the street by my house.  They were hours of deep solace for me during a time in my life when domestic violence and turmoil were a certain part of the daily diet.

The other thing that I shared which was more recent was a sight that literally stopped me in my tracks.  I was walking up a hill towards the main street when a truck went charging past with its burden of pine logs that had been cut, shaped and *treated*. 

The sight of those logs, taken from trees that had been castrated and left with no dignity filled me with anguish.  I stood still, reeling from the pain that I felt for those trees and their brutal treatment.  It is an image that I have not forgotten and that brought tears to my eyes even as I described it to my customer.

When some people speak of the spirit of trees, I have a sense of what they mean.  After all, all beings arise from the same source, the same power that pervades the entire universe.  I became interested in how these people relate to non-human forms such as trees, rocks, rivers and all the other aspects of nature that most of us ignore or simply take for granted. 

I've read about druidism and am fascinated by the relationships between humans and other life forms in various cultures.  I especially love finding out about the rituals that are practiced. 

I have long abandoned the crude distinctions that I was taught in school and university about *living* and *non-living* things as well as *intelligent* and, by implication, *unintelligent* life forms.

But my recent conversation at work prompted me to look up the rituals for tree-cutting and here's one that I found relating to the Lumads in the Philippines:

Lumads also observe rituals before cutting down trees especially if these are believed to be inhabited by powerful spirits. An example is the balete tree the cutting of which is prohibited as a rule. If the tree grows in a farm lot and it becomes necessary to cut it down, the farmer gives offerings to the spirit-dweller and interprets his response. If the offerings remain untouched it means the spirit has agreed to transfer to another tree and the tree may be felled. But if the offerings are scattered, it means the spirit has turned down the request to cut down his dwelling place.

 This is the full article, A Glimpse of Indegenous Resource Management.

Do you have an affinity with trees?
Do you believe that the same life force pervades all of life?
Do you think that a ritual for tree-cutting should be encouraged?

I''d love to know :)

What is it for you, this so-called 'Spirit of Christmas'?

This is a post I've been wanting to write for some time now but just didn't find the time and when I did have the time, the energy to write it.

You see, my working hours and days at the store have tripled due to the Christmas season and being on my feet all day and enjoying every moment with customers leaves me completely spent - in a good way, of course.

It also means that, for the moment at least, I feel unable to do much when I get home other than make myself dinner, give my dog hers, put my feet up and watch some docco or comedy on TV.  Oh, that and make a few Christmas presents and cards for the few people that I have on my mental list for giving cards and presents to.  I should add that the warm (hot, if you ask me) and humid weather isn't conducive to much else.

So, what was this post I so badly wanted to write?  Well, it's really to ask you this question:

Do you feel you have the 'Christmas spirit' happening for you and if so, what is it?

It's a question that I've been asking myself.  I mean, I wonder what the 'Christmas spirit' is, you know?

As a child in an oppressively Catholic family, it was very much about the amazing birth of this baby following the arduous journey of its parents and the magical arrival of the Magi at the stable amidst shepherds and farm animals, all of which was foreshadowed by what we knew too well would be the tragic-triumphant destiny of this child.  At least that's how I remember it.

It was also the one of perhaps two occasions in the year (the other being birthdays) when we had new clothes.  Our family of nine kids  was too poor to afford them any other time.  As for exchanging gifts, well there was none of that for obvious reasons.  Those were the conditions within which the 'Christmas spirit' manifested for me as a child.

Actually, there was more,  relating to the ongoing brutality of my father which seemed to escalate to cataclysmic proportions on occasions of significance resulting in an atmosphere of unbearable tension between innocent enthusiasm and inescapable dread.

But that's all in the distant past and I have had many. many more joyous, gift-giving and pain-free Christmases since :).  (And I hold nothing against my dad, now some years passed on).

I suppose I'm wondering what is left of the 'Christmas spirit' now that the religious purpose and overtones of Christmas are no longer relevant (as is the case with me) and the gift-giving has been liberated from obligation and convention.

I know I feel immensely freer and more open to spending Christmas day with people other than family.  Admittedly, this has been happening for a few years now as the children have approached 'adulthood' (whatever that means).

I had this thought yesterday: So much for tradition...what's mine?  What's my family's?

It used to be going to midnight mass in our new clothes, checking out everyone else's new gear, listening to the choir's delicious harmonies and enchanting solos sung from the loft of a church that swelled and overflowed with people I didn't usually see at the weekly services and returning home to have my father open a bottle of sherry which we each, the eleven or so family members,  got a thimble full off (just about) together with a no-where-near-enough crumb of fruit cake.

I tried to keep this tradition going with my family, before and after I got divorced, with much more generous helpings of sherry and fruit cake of course :).  It lasted for many years but with my daughter now in Melbourne and my son experimenting with life as all of us are destined to do, I'm left with neither tradition nor anyone to pass it on to!

So what's left of the Christmas spirit for me, I'm wondering.  And I'm asking you the question certain that your answers will help me find and refine mine.  Care to share?

PS I wish you the true gifts of Christmas - Peace, Joy and Love.  And may 2011 thrill you with the wonder and magic of your dreams fulfilled!