Skip to main content

Sapta


The Ambitions of the Cedar

We bought our house unaware of the ambitions of the cedar tree in our front yard. With ease, it dwarfed all of my own--prone as I am to the ideal--quadrupling its size in seven years, or 28 seasons, beginning with the summer we moved in, until now, this winter, when we had it cut down.

In a few more years it would have threatened the foundation of our home, the arborist told us, clearly a man who knows his trees and loves them. None of us wanted to remove it, especially this season when the rains had returned and plumped up its base and its color and its dense green branches after it had made do with so little water so long.

Already, a hummingbird had made its nest deep inside the branches. Earlier still and much higher up than last year, this mother bird returned and placed her nest and her faith in the resoluteness of this tree. Cedars by nature are known for their durability as sometimes people are not--fickle as we have proven to be even about foundational things.

Right now, on the front stoop, sits her empty nest and the cedar branch she built it on. I cannot yet bring myself to throw them away. It is enough that we have removed the immense shadow of green the tree spread across my office window, which faced it--often with me in the frame--through every one of its seasons. For me, the cedar was its own window. On my best days, I could see right through it: A clear view of calm abiding.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lady chores and essential ingredients

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope. –Maya Angelou Until very recently, an endearing picture of a smiling Neem Karoli Baba greeted me from my computer’s home page. Every time I logged onto the computer that face was a reminder to me to be courageous and strong and tender. While I never had the good fortune to meet Neem Karoli Baba when he was alive, I have read and heard stories of him from some of his more celebrated Western disciples, including Krishna Das, the kirtan singer; Lama Surya Das, the American lama and author who started out as a Jewish kid from Long Island; and Baba Ram Dass, formerly known as Timothy Leary’s partner in LSD research and experimentation at Harvard, Richard Alpert. To a person, these men speak reverently of Neem Karoli Baba or Maharaji, as they affectionately refer to their teacher. According to them, to be in his presence was to be in the presence of capital “...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Course in Obstacles

"Life is all about living with obstacles. Everything's an obstacle."  When your twelve-year-old utters a statement like this, you cannot help but remain quiet for fear the wisdom will fly straight out of the window instead of settling about you like fairy dust, ready to grant you, not necessarily the next desire on your long list of wishes, but a bit of perspective that had momentarily gone missing. Of course, such an utterance makes you speechless as a parent, too, because you suddenly become aware that your child is doing the thing she was meant to do. Not only is she growing up, she is growing beyond you as her parent, and, one day, she really will be living life on her own, which also means on her own terms. It is a brave and foolish thing, raising children. From the get-go, they are both obstacle and source of transformation. (Not so very unlike all those yoga poses you intend to master.) Throughout your lives together, you are engaged in a dance of guilt and fo...
1 comment
Read more

ANNOUNCEMENT: Out on a Limb, live web show about yoga hosted by yours truly. Begins Sunday, March 2 at 2 p.m.

In Swami Satchidananda’s translation of the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali, the capital “s” sage of the text that explains yoga to the seeker, Satchidananda speaks of the secret of coming together to practice this ancient art. He says, “There is joy in being together, that’s all.” That’s the secret. No attachment, no expectation, and joy. This is yoga. Of course, even joy requires practice. As a dedicated student of ashtanga yoga, I am naturally committed to the physical practice, also known as the asana . While the physical practice has many traditions—Iyengar, Anusara, Yin, Flow, Kundalini, to name a few—it is important to understand that the asana is only one small part—one limb—of the entire eight-limb path that is yoga. The larger journey takes shape as we leave our mats, step out of the studio and into the world. I invite you to join me in a weekly 60-minute exploration of the multiple realms of yoga where we might venture beyond our comfort zones and go Out on a Limb to ...
1 comment
Read more