Grandmother Tree.
She knows things and just one look at her and you know she knows.
She'll take your breath away so she can return it to you fuller than you gave it to her.
She holds wisdom more ancient than your soul and truth more beautiful than a new beginning.
I kneel in reverence to her majesty.
I am spellbound by her quiet words.
She teaches me who I am by being who she is.
I see her.
I see how she is captivating.
Her presence so commanding because she knows who she is.
She'll tell you her secrets if you tell her yours.
With a gentle gaze upon your skin you can't help but offer up your longings.
The places where you belong and can remember.
She whispers to you of pure beauty imminence woven into her song of silence.
She teaches you how everything is intertwined like her branches wrestling with each other to be free and determined to keep connected.
Wanting to be liberated and craving to stay together.
She is a force,
A fountain,
A home.
She is patient as each bug crawls up her spine and as every bird lands for a little while just enough to perch upon her strength before taking flight.
Grandmother speaks.
See how I mother by being grand.
Only reaching as high as I need to allow my branches to bow and twist and stay thick.
They shelter you and many others.
There is no choice for Grandmother Tree except to pour forth her wisdom,
Her knowledge,
Her comforting knowing,
Her established becoming.
She shows me.
How being a creature of grace,
How being a mother and a grand one is all connected to her ability to hold both.
She is majestic so you know her and she listens so she knows you.
In her listening she reveals to you your own magnificence.
The one you do not own and cannot borrow.
The one given to you when you admit your seat and take your place in the web of all things.
Grandmother says with her gnarled branches and her gently falling yellow leaves.
I know how to let go but more importantly I know how to let be.
I know how to hold on.
It is in my roots and in the green of my canopy.
But more importantly I know how to hold still.
She is so still and so alive in her stillness.
She is so quiet and so tremendous in her quietude like a mountain.
She doesn't have to beckon.
You feel her call.
She isn't here to serve you but she does.
You aren't here to chit chat but you do.
Honor what arises in your heart dear one she reminds you.
There's a time to be soulful and there's a time to move as all things do.
Sometimes like right now your soulfulness moves you because she bears testimony to how one can boast their own glory without pride and invite another's blossoming without sacrifice.
She is not a bit less than she should be.
She would not dare take up less space.
But in taking hers she also gives you yours.
Grandmother is not like anyone you know.
She has the whole world inside and she reveals that enormity to you in a way that does not overwhelm but does move everything irrelevant out of the way.
She is just here and nowhere else and that is everything.
She is everything.
You in her eyes are everything.
So take your shoes off to feel the soil she breathes.
Vask under her loving branches.
Remember what it is like to be held,
To be you,
To know and to hold others and die to anything that makes you forget.
