Here there is a tree. A tree with a full canopy and thick,
radial branches. YOO7 is carved into its trunk, just below eye level to my
usual perch. I have yet to decode it, and in my years of failure the bark made
the Y, the 7, and the second O scar over with crinkled new skin. The leaves that
grow on this tree are fat, healthy ovals with a subtle point and veins that
stand out as the sun passes through them. In the summer, the tree looks huge
and imposing. In the winter, it’s bare and inviting. We are close enough now
that it doesn’t get to me anymore. When I leave, I kiss this tree goodbye.
My third year of high school was terribly intermediate.
Between stress and learning, between bud and blossom, between fear and
adventure. One priority that became clear was a need for hours of meditation.
This mind was not simply going to sort itself out. I chose the principal stage
for this internal performance to be three of the tree’s largest branches. One
for my back, one for my bum, and one for my toes so they need not dangle. And I
sat.
And I slept, and I lounged, and sometimes I climbed higher,
and sometimes I just lay on the grass above its roots. I would bring some
canned music, or a book, even notes from school. My lunch was a frequent
meditation buddy. But the vast majority of the time was spent with no
stimulation except what my free flying brain threw to the surface.
Ironically, much of this solitude was spent imagining
conversations; building a character to talk back to me, to make me cover all of
my bases as I described something, or argued something. More often than not the
were based on someone I knew, even a close friend. I acknowledged the fallacy of
the character I invented, but I did imagine myself talking to someone I knew. I
don’t use this technique very much anymore, but it did allow me to play with
the idea of talking to someone who knew me well, or someone who didn’t have any
background. It also let me speak to people I admired without any embarrassment.
This part of the exercise had the most value in real life, I believe.
The strongest epiphany I had in the embrace of the tree is
not easily described. It had a visual component, much like a drug might induce.
I still believe that there are no effects given by drugs that cannot be found through
meditation, albeit with a different feel. I saw infinite dots, representing
people. Between them were real and imaginary connections, seen as lines, which
affected their movement. Sometimes the movement was direct and purposeful,
other times lilting or gradual, like gravitational pull. Chaos, in short. The
movement of the dots was their progression through life. There was no forward
or backward, but there was a general flow that everyone followed with their own
set of small deviations.
My own dot was conveniently a different color, but would
have been remarkable regardless. It created new connections constantly and
followed the flow faster than others. Then, without warning it would turn back,
or travel perpendicular to flow, or at an angle. It would find another path,
retaining the lines created in the other but moving regardless to their
influence. The path it took was entirely self-determined, but it held its old
connections as strongly as the dots that would be pulled by its neighbors for
the rest of the journey.
So I cried against the tree, and thanked it for showing me
what I wanted from my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment