travels, reflections, poems….
Thanks to Fred Pearce, who we normally link to at Yale e360, for The Forest Forecast, an article in the current issue of Science magazine: Climate change could lead to a net expansion of global forests. But will a more forested world actually be cooler? These are strange times for the Indigenous Nenets reindeer herders of […]
Will More Forests Cool The Planet Fast Enough? — Organikos
The Goddess Iusaaset is one of the most ancient Egyptian Goddesses. Her name literally means “Utterer of Words, Conceiver of Worlds, Isis”
Iusaaset, Goddess of the Tree of Life — Iseum Sanctuary
Radiocarbon from a 42,000-year-old kauri tree in New Zealand helped unravel Earth’s last magnetic upheaval. JONATHAN PALMER Science magazine is accessible for most lay readers, even if their articles occasionally include a word we have never heard of, such as paleomagnetist: Ancient kauri trees capture last collapse of Earth’s magnetic field Several years ago, workers […]
Ancient Trees & Magnetic Field — Organikos
Tourists visiting Tāne Mahuta, the largest known kauri tree, in Waipoua Forest in New Zealand. The tree is named for a god in Māori mythology. Ruth Mcdowall for The New York Times A former kauri ambassador blowing a conch shell near Tāne Mahuta. There’s hope among advocates that Māori-led interventions have created enough time for […]
Maori Tree-Saving — Organikos
Diana Beresford-Kroeger at her home in Ontario. “If you build back the forests, you oxygenate the atmosphere more, and it buys us time,” she said. Nasuna Stuart-Ulin for The New York Times Another round of thanks to Cara Buckley for a vividly written snapshot. Using Science and Celtic Wisdom to Save Trees (and Souls) is […]
The Wondrous Capabilities Of Trees — Organikos
Mist-ringed towers drifting
And the snow petal
Remember the forest Gods
From long before
Who ruled all lands then.
It was exactly
Very, very long ago
When
The rains buffeted
The clouds in the sky
And much has happened since –
Betrayal,
Forgetting,
Diminishing,
Lessening.
The bitter knife of the wind prods
The memory;
Only the great-horned owl recalls,
And his friends.
Those Gods have gone to far worlds – away
And often hid,
To universes little known –
And yet they are not far,
Still here, alone,
While winds obey,
Because there are no moments now,
No distance,
No separation,
No illusion,
Only the reality,
Only the howl, laughing,
Of the coyote
Whose fur shines white in the moonlight,
Whose awareness is keen,
Like the eyes of the star.
Perceptions of snow –
Past worlds, wooded, green
The one true past is here now –
In the pinecone
That whistles in the January
Wind and in the juncos and white-crowned sparrows,
Who hop within the whiffs
Of the snow flurry,
In the winds of gold that fly
From the setting sun that falls
Behind the cliffs.
Gone now, the noble cow,
Wandering home in the mists,
Eternal mists of snow,
Of times that were and are
And are again to be
When the Gods guard the way,
To protect the sacred, snow-enchanted day
In the deep forests,
Now and yet again and evermore.
***
By Sharon St Joan
© Copyright, Sharon St Joan, 2022
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Trees are aware of the rain – a gentle rain, filling the air with moisture – rain like silver footsteps tiptoeing on the leaves of the cottonwood tree. But that is rather poetic. “Poetic”, however, does not mean “untrue”. On the contrary, poetry and myth are the truest truths – far more true than mere physical reality (which only describes a small part of what is – and so is woefully incomplete).
The truth of the tree is extreme sensitivity to and awareness of the sound of the rumbling distant thunder, of the fragrance of the wet flower petals – of the gentle happiness of the forest in the falling raindrops. Truth is the tree’s awareness. A poem.
© Sharon St Joan, 2021
By Sharon St Joan
Within the rose
Shining in the night,
A shimmering cloud
Grows,
Within the night
A crowd
Of trees walking,
Walking through bright
Hills of mist,
Back to the beginning
Again,
Back to the sacred – not forgotten – forest
Of rains and stars and winged beings,
Of boats that sail long in the rushing rivers of the skies.
There floats
Within the lake-enchanted eyes
Of the tiger;
In an ember of perception,
The presence
Of Durga,
Who holds up the resilient dagger
Of truth,
Imparting the courage
To be walking
Through fields of lilies,
On dimming days,
Through the magic of the gloam,
Guided by the long-known
Beings of light,
By the souls of the trees
Going home,
By the trees
That remember
Always.
In the night of the swan
Who knows
All things
Within the fire,
The river of eternity,
The beings walk on
Within the voice, lone, not far away,
Of the great-horned owl
Who calls,
In reply to the howl
Of the winds of the night,
And who guides lost feet
In the frost
Of winter’s time,
In the sleet,
In the snows,
In the reflection,
Dancing on the ice,
Breaking in the spring,
In the sound of the chime
Of the ancient day,
Returning.
The higher
Truth of the light
And the walking, not alone,
Where the souls of the trees
Breathe
In the holy darkness
And in the brightness
Of the day that is yet to be,
Shining.
© Sharon St Joan, 2020
Written August 28, 2020