In the Woods
by Sara Flitner
If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If a tree dies in the woods, and no one witnessed the passage, did it live?
Writer Pam Houston tells the story of a tree, Mother of the Forest, she was called. In 1854, a few men took it upon themselves to separate the bark from her form – something that took them three months to achieve. The planks of bark were shipped to the East Coast for a party, and the men went back to their lives in other places; no one watched the slow withering death of the tree. But had the men, too, been changed? Could one spend three months skinning a tree, leaving a sacred thing defenseless, and not begin to die too?
To witness something with full attention is to make it holy. To observe a thing’s details, its place in the world, its circumstances is to make sacred the thousands of mundane and miraculous ways that our daily lives start anew, flame out, begin again. To see and know something, to know it through paying attention to it, is one way to keep a thing alive. Because, if the essence of something goes unnoticed, can it survive?
I sat in a tall chair the other night with my friend Jimmy, in a community conversation orchestrated to bring calm and comfort to frazzled nerves of people who pay close attention to election cycles. Jimmy asked a question about breath, how it’s used in mindfulness and what it signifies in the practice. The breath, as miraculous and life-giving as that mother tree, used to be unseen by me. Of 10,000 or so breaths I took each day, I was not aware of a single one.
When I did begin to notice the expansion, the release of tension, the mere fact of breath coming and going with no effort by me, it became a thing to cherish, to meditate on, to – by one definition of meditation – become familiar with. And to become familiar with something is to see its value, to begin to love it and take care of it. To see how the bark should not be separated from the tree.
Election day will come and go. While I have fervent hopes, as do many Americans, I put my attention on two things: what I will let go of, and what I will become more familiar with. I will let go of anything that makes me miserable or rigid. I don’t want to fill myself with rage anymore. I will become familiar with things that lie in the shadows, things that can do good and become stronger by getting light.
I will stay familiar with my thoughts and when they turn dreary, I will call my friend who makes me laugh or go outside with the dogs. I will welcome the change of weather, a choice I can make by putting my attention on the pristine white on the mountains I can see from my window, the subtle messages in gray, off white, white, brown smoky blue across the sky. I think how easy it would be to stay unfamiliar to these details, like those men with axes and knives in their hands and how this would make it easy for me to miss the beauty all around me.
I will remember that a community or a country, like a forest, shares the same sky, steps on the same solid ground, receives breath that brings actual life, with no fanfare. Despite the election angst, trucks arrive on time, the parents pick up the kids. Someone bends down to retrieve a stranger’s hat and give it back. Someone else writes a poem or an editorial or refuses to pick up the axe.
I will rest at night and sleep, loving my country and my hopes. I will wake tomorrow, with thanksgiving for all that is good and right, not because I am a glass-half-full person, really, but because I choose to spend my time as restful, not stressful company and because I want to be with the people who are familiar with the good that is there, the good they can do. When that strength settles into my bones, and the caffeine gives me another nudge, I will go out into the imperfect world and do my best to love it.