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

The dawn's early light

My husband is not a morning person. In fact, he would say that getting up early is for the birds. And, of course, he'd be right. Every bird worth its weight in feathers knows that the early morning is the best time to harvest worms and to sing its ode to the dawn's early light. While I have no interest in competing with the birds for their morning grubs--as long as they leave enough for the garden--I am, nonetheless, one of the flock when it comes to paying tribute to the dawn. According to the latest evidence in sleep research, this penchant for the dawn makes me a "lark," a morning person, someone who feels she is capable of her best work in the morning. Those who burn the candle at the other end of the day are known as "owls" because they, like their nocturnal namesakes, tend to be more productive in the evening. I imagine that if I talked to enough "owls," I would find that, like me, they have a special reverence for their particular time o...
3 comments
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

Out on a Limb, Sunday, March 9: Gratitude with Diana Christinson

If you missed today's live broadcast of Out on a Limb , click on the link below to hear me in conversation with Ashtanga yoga teacher Diana Christinson of Pacific Ashtanga Yoga in Dana Point. Our theme today: Gratitude. We talk about learning how to tune in to the present moment to cultivate gratefulness in our lives, which, like our yoga practice, is an art, a practice, a dance. Listen as Diana gives instructions for how to conduct and navigate our own "Google Search" of our lives lived daily. Here is the link to today's podcast at KX @ One Laguna: http://kx.onelaguna.com/podcasts/ Here is the link to find Diana Christinson and her shala Pacific Ashtanga in Dana Point, CA: http://www.pacificashtanga.com/ Finally, here is the link to Brother David Steindl-Rast's website: http://www.gratefulness.org/ Next week: Sunday, March 16 at 2 p.m. Join me for live conversation with Earth Scape artist Andres Amador. We will talk about the "sacred geometry...
2 comments
Read more