Lessons in Living from a Tree

Lessons in li v ing from a tree

a fictional novel of recovery by

Willow

Lessons in Living from a Tree BY W ILLOW

a fictional novel for recovery

© Copyright 2013 by Kristin Alberts. All rights reserved.

Electronically Published 2013 lessonsinlivingfromatree.com ISBN-10: 0989983404 ISBN-13: 978-0-9899834-0-2 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise—without the express written permission of the copyright holder. Failure to comply with these terms is considered copyright infringement.

Editor’s note: A. This text is not intended as a substitute for the advice of health care professionals.

B. Alcoholics Anonymous, AA, and the Big Book, are registered trademarks of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. The 12-Steps are reprinted with permission of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (“AAWS”). Permission to reprint the 12-Steps does not mean that AAWS has reviewed or approved the contents of this publication, or that AAWS necessarily agrees with the views expressed herein. A.A. is a program of recovery from alcoholism only—use of the 12-Steps in connection with programs and activities which are patterned after A.A. (but which address other problems) or in any other non-A.A. context, does not otherwise imply.

C. No references in the “Reference Note” section of this text suggest or imply that the author or publisher of such reference concurs or agrees with any item or point made within this novel’s text.

D. This is a fictional novel. All characters deceased or fictional in nature, including their supposed actions and relationships between characters are and should be considered imaginary and fictionalized; and no characters in the story depict or imply any living person.

Book design by Jake Jenkins Set in Stempel Garamond

lessons in li v ing from a t r ee

contents

author’s note

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in-tree-duction pro-log

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1. in-tree-related 2. ring master 3. tree break 4. “rules of it-tree” 5. leaflet 6. tree-ching tools 7. criminal-it-tree 8. when the bow breaks 9. the clearing 10. leaflet: tree strikes and you’re out . . . plus one 11. treeless leaflet 12. treasure trove grove 13. nothing unnatur al in nature’s court 14. the ache 15. doubt-phil 16. misery tree 17. missing meaning’s mark x2 18. education of rusty rootless: day one of twelve 19. education of rusty rootless: days two and three 20. untying a knot 21. origins of hate 22. education of rusty rootless: days four and five 23. the spark

9 11 16 20 29 32 36 39 42 48 58 64 70 75 77 81 94 96 107 121 123 126 131

24. letting go: orphaned annie and the treasure of the lost leaf 25. education of rusty rootless: days six and seven 26. trials and treebulations 27. education of rusty rootless: days eight, nine, and ten 28. half in, half out 29. fear in the forest 30. where technology meets the tree 31. par adox’s mystery 32. father phil’s quest 33. acts our angels be 34. conspir acy theory 35. education of rusty rootless: day eleven 36. the plan 37. education of rusty rootless: day twelve 38. life vs grief 39. between tree and sea 40. the gulf stream 41. tempest in a sea-yacht 42. treeless two 43. returns of the day 44. shoot-out at the oak a. cor al 45. an ending 46. a beginning

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author’s postscript

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reference notes

142 152 155 163 168 176 187 195 205 209 216 220 230 236 243 249 255 259 270 274 281 284

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au t hor’s no t e

who is god to you? A simple question for some, but a grueling, gut-wrenching question with tiger teeth in it for many coming to grips with an addiction problem in 12-Step programs. Over the past ten of my 26 years of mostly grateful sobriety in A.A., I have facilitated weekly 12-Step meetings for inmates at my local county jail. The group involves not only alcoholics, but an array of drug addictions. In these and other numerous outside meetings, I have come to describe what I call the “Cringe Factor”—the moment the word God is mentioned to many newcomers. Some are indifferent to the term, others downright indignant, much the same as I was when I started the 12-step walk.

Surrounded by orange-clad inmates on either side of a long table—which folds up into the wall so the high-ceilinged room with a basketball hoop can double as a jailhouse recroom—the meeting starts not with the Serenity Prayer, but with an echoing clank as the jailer slams shut the thick door and twists the key to lock it. I look around the table. I’ve seen many of the faces before. In-and-out and in-and-out. Over and over again until several are finally sent to prison. The ages vary. Most are young, some middle-aged, and a few old who are seemingly not only at the end of their addictions, but their time on this earth.

Anger, grief, despondency and confusion hang like dark clouds draped around their faces. Through years of listening, I’ve learned the bulk of their backgrounds involve unresolved anger and abandonment, tragic abuse and loss, not to mention unacceptable and illegal behavior toward society. With that in mind, we get to the Serenity Prayer, How It Works and at interval meetings I ask a question.

“Be honest. Tell me the truth. No B.S. What do you really

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think when we read and you hear the word ‘God’ mentioned?”

“I think it’s a crock of crap!” a cocky young inmate blurts out. There are smiles around the table at his bravado. Then they glance at me for reaction. None is given. Many have grown up in homes where neither a tinge of faith nor hope was present.

“Well, how about starting with a Higher Power greater than yourself?” I ask. “It doesn’t have to be as drastic and distasteful as you might think.”

For those in the cringe stage, “Higher Power” seems more palatable, but still somewhat suspicious. And, it is from this point the effort begins to encourage newcomers to explore the concept of a Higher Power and what it means to them as individuals. I use the table around which we sit as an example. “Let’s say this 20-foot table was detached from the wall and you go to one end and try to lift the entire thing off the ground. You can’t do it. But, if you asked a friend to take the other end, then both of you together could not only lift the table, but move it anywhere you needed it to be. That extra help you received is, in a way of thinking, a power greater than yourself. What, at the beginning of the 12-step walk, can you accept? It can be as simple as “G”-“O”-“D”—or “G”ood “O”rderly “D”irection or even the members of the fellowship at the meeting.”

“So you’re asking us to worship you!” an unconvinced inmate challenges skeptically.

“Not at all,” I explain. “If you’re like me, even the word ‘worship’ made me cringe at the beginning. But in due time, I realized we all worship something, and if we were honest with ourselves, (or the delusion of our pride was truly disbanded) our finger could point at it instantly. The question simply asks: what is the most important thing in our lives?

The answer, or the truth of it, is concealed behind a cell of misery, but for those around us—those people we thought we were fooling—the answer was obvious. It was what they saw

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us pursuing most of our waking hours—our addiction. And, in its own way, that is a fatal type of worship.”

And so the process is started for the newcomer (if there is a desire to stop using) to exercise without criticism the freedom and liberty to begin the discovery of a Higher Power greater than themselves; in short, a God of their own understanding.

The key inside this novel, revealed through its characters, is to encourage this serious process of starting somewhere. Once done, that “somewhere” grows and evolves if the object is sincerely sought. That is the novel’s point. The story line is very simple in an effort to follow one of our program slogans stating, “Keeping it simple is what it’s all about.”

Within this text, no one is asked to agree with the points made. As the A.A. Big Book states, “We have no monopoly on God.” (Page 95) What I do hope the reader takes from the story is that no matter the spiritual path at which we initially arrive, it is always growing. Equally important is that each path, though unique in its own right, shares some very common themes with others. I do suggest that from time to time you scroll to the “Reference Notes” at the back of the book.

There, for numerous chapters, you will find detailed notes and thoughts by spiritual thinkers from which many of the chapter concepts were derived. One, for example is William James’ book The Varieties of Religious Experience, which is mentioned in the A.A. Big Book (Page-567).

Once done reading, you will have a chance to contribute your thoughts on the text on the discussion page at lessonsinlivingfromatree.com. There, I will attempt to respond to questions and accept any suggestions or criticisms you may put forth. Also, please consider this novel text much the same as a 12-step meeting concerning contributions. It is free if you need it to be. Also, if you find the story helpful and wish to contribute to help maintain this web page you can send a contribution to Kristin Alberts, P.O. Box 83, Oconto Falls, WI, 54154.

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My heartfelt appreciation for help in editing this book goes to Kristin Alberts, a published poet, who spent countless hours combing through text and contacting me with suggestions via phones since we live in different states. Also, my sincere thanks to the following authors, publishers, foundations and organizations for their works of inspiration used in writing this book: Alcoholics Anonymous World Service for its permission to use the 12-Steps (in general terms) within the text of the novel, which includes the necessity of stating the content of this text is not nor implies it is “A.A. Conference Approved Literature.” Please note disclaimers on the publishing page concerning all references; © Mary Pat Fisher, author of Living Religions/Fifth Edition (Prentice-Hall Inc./Upper Saddle River, N.J. 07458) for providing a broad range of spiritual concepts which I have used, referenced and footnoted in the Reference Notes section; the © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1949, which retains Lewis’ copyright for his book The Weight of Glory including its publisher HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. 10 East 53rd St. New York, NY; and The Joseph Campbell Foundation for permission to use numerous quotes and concepts from a broad range of the author’s work.

We have had many successes in our 12-step work, but this book is aimed at those still suffering from addiction and at the beginning of their journey of finding and experiencing a Higher Power that works for them. If you are involved in a 12-step program and searching for a Higher Power of your own understanding, my hope is this book may provide you with some insight and encouragement in your quest. If you are one who is helping a newcomer with this issue, may you find items here that help with your dedicated service work. For PDF, e-book, or hardcopy versions of the novel please visit lessonsinlivingfromatree.com.

Warmest Regards, Willow

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Lessons in Living from a Tree

This book is dedicated to my children and all my relatives—(Mitakuye Oyasin).

Lessons in Living from a Tree

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In-Tree-Duction Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. — Emerson

Through its faith, mankind has embraced the tree since the beginning of time. The forest itself may be the purest form of holy books. A tree is not God, yet has the character of gods. A tree is the largest living appendage of the earth. Of species, it possesses the greatest variety. Of all seeds sown, it lives the longest. It drives deeper into the depths of the earth and reaches higher above than any life form upon the earth.

The very breath that sustains us relies upon the tree. Stand for a moment and grant the tree reflection. Consider the lessons in living from a tree. It is not such a strange request, but rather one that has much company with those who have traveled the path before us. Dating back to the time when the concept of faith was first considered, the tree has been a symbol of life threaded through the thoughts of man, granting instruction to us all.

In Judaism, the very beginning of man’s struggle is depicted through the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Later, when God handed Moses a code of rules to live by, He re-

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vealed Himself through the symbol of a burning bush—a small tree—to deliver the Commandments’ message. The “Christ” in Christianity has been symbolized as the “Tree of Life.” The ubiquitous symbol spanning more than two thousand years of the entire Christian religion is two crossed wooded timbers, signifying the sacrifice and love of God for man.

There is the Lote-tree of Islam and the Palm tree leaves upon which Muhammad’s revelations were written and preserved. The tree was of such symbolic significance to Muhammad that he told his people, “If you are planting a tree and the end of the world comes, keep planting the tree.” The symbol spreads its branches to Buddhism where its founder, Siddhartha Gautama, was granted enlightenment beneath a sacred fig tree. And, in Hinduism, the revered trees encompass healing and sacred energy for spiritual transformation.

So strong is the symbol that its thread was used to weave together the very fabric of a tortured culture. Through many Native American beliefs, the Creator planted a Sacred Tree that would never die. Beneath its shade and through its life, believers find the power of healing, wisdom, security and love.

For them, the path to this tree is always open, preserved within the hearts of humble and wise tribal elders.

Of all the canons of all the faiths, we have found much ground for disagreement. Yet throughout history, the tree has stood on solid soil as a pillar of instruction through which our varied songs for life have found a harmonious tune. Although centuries separated mankind’s minds and continents our lives, we collectively found something in the tree upon which we could agree: the tree is a symbol of life itself and from it we can take instruction.

Anyone who studies a felled tree quickly discovers the strongest point of the tree is where two major stems branch off from one another and go their separate ways. That connecting point is what keeps them strong and anchored. Are our varied religions and spiritual paths so different? If you scrape off

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all the dissimilarities, we end up at the message which is this very point: “Life can be very difficult, but it is a wonderful and blessed thing. Gently nurture it. Be kind. Take care of one another and bask in the beauty of the differences for the world would be bland without them.”

A footnote to this fact is pertinent to note. The separate tree stems do not try to become as one once the separation starts. But, each understands its individual growth depends upon the strength of their connection. They know the food that feeds them life comes through one related trunk no matter how they go on their merry way to find the light within their lives.

Our quibbles may never end, but we seem to agree the tree is one of the purest forms of living prayer. Few religions or spiritual paths in history have omitted the tree as a symbol within their faith—coincidence or proverbial miracle by God without a signature? But, even if one chooses to live without thoughts of God, the tree has offered guidance. It is difficult indeed to find a segment of life that a tree has not touched.

In science, the fruits of Newton’s knowledge fell from a tree. Without trees, art would be a barren landscape, and literature, essays without the pulp upon which to place the words. Would Thoreau have danced to a different drummer and encouraged us to escape “lives of quiet desperation” had not trees surrounded Walden Pond? Would Joyce Kilmer be remembered had he not written, “I think that I shall never see…?” And what a pickle Huckleberry Finn and Jim would have been in had they not a wooden raft to ride their way to freedom and by doing so, remove hatred from our hearts. So if life is an art, detect the lack of life if we subtracted all the trees.

We tend to forget, but it is good to remember how trees dot the landscape of our legends. Teddy Roosevelt’s most quoted phrase deals with carrying a “wooden stick.” He viewed setting aside vast tracts of land to preserve trees as one of his highest achievements. Yet, in cutting down trees, Paul Bunyan

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taught us strength and Washington never to tell a lie. Even the logs with which Lincoln built his home are a testament to the worthiness of persistent and hardy work.

Trees have built our homes, guided our thoughts and fitted our ships as we sailed off into discovery throughout the ages.

Though yachts today are made of plastic, a good eye detects one made of wood as the real salt of the earth upon which a true sailor sails. In one way or another we all have affinity to the tree. Cicero, the Roman statesman said that when we walk among the trees, the presence of God becomes known to us.

Maybe he knew that if we did not notice something as grand as a tree we would not notice or appreciate anything at all. If we are to truly live life, our beliefs must possess an honest admiration for the chance we’re granted to experience it in all its parts. For this, the tree reaches out its branches of instruction for us to touch.

If we believe we come from dust, the tree shows us how to dig our roots deep into the origins from whence we came. If we believe our birth is granted from above, the tree shows us how to stretch to the heavens to find our home. If instruction needs a resume, this surely must be it, for it is one seeking a job that teaches us lessons in living from a tree.

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Pro-Log The forest draws from you the basic you— the unadorned, stable you in all your simple splendor.

— Quote from a famous, albeit anonymously written poem in Treedom

Years ago a young maturing maple named Mather looked on as two friends squabbled beneath an apple tree about what was the best way to ascend a nearby mountain. Unable to come to an agreement, the dispute grew into an ugly brawl until the two angrily parted company. Each went his own way to climb the mountain as he saw fit, but not without first damning beneath his breath the other person’s choice.

“What am I to make of this?” Mather mused to himself. Throughout the years, as the young maple matured and watched the apple tree grow, Mather received his answer: An apple tree is not an island unto itself. Should it desire to bear good fruit, which it does, it cannot always do so by itself.

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The pollen carried by a bee or wind to complete the process must come from a completely different tree. Nature insists on it. Without that difference, the yield of fruit is nil or next to nothing. Such a tree needs help from something beyond itself to fulfill itself. Strange thing, but true scientreefically and any other “if-ically” one may think.

During one dramatic year of drought, Mather watched as the tree came nearly to its death. It decided to bear a gargantuan amount of fruit on all its branches. With no moisture in the soil for its roots to draw, the tree relinquished all its internal reserve of water to its crop. Numerous branches drooped and cracked. Mather absorbed the message that sacrifice is built into the nature of things, yet sacrifice begs of balance. The following year, an orchard manager walked through the forest, and out of his good-natured heart, pruned the apple tree. It helped ensure the tree would not produce more fruit than its branches could handle. By doing so, the tree produced smaller amounts, yet better more sturdy fruits. Sacrifice is not necessarily always about giving more, but pruning down to give the best. Here again, Mather noticed that the outside help needed to improve itself was beyond the scope of the tree itself. With these lessons inscribed in his core, Mather finally noticed way off in the distance the two previously quarrelsome friends descending the mountain, laughing arm in arm.

“What am I to make of this?” he questioned himself. When the answer he desired came to him, he spoke to the forest with a quenched heart: “This is a story in which all stories fit. May the greatest of our joys be the life that we live. I shall make this my story—both the beginning and the end of it.”

And that is exactly what Mather did.

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1

In-Tree-Related The sun would shine even had we not a name for it.

— Treeverb

Long ago, a wise old tree named Sir Tip realized trees were not alone—they possessed a spirit within them that was greater than the trees themselves. This knowledge was ingrained in their taproots and the core of what they were. But, he became weary of what to call it. Sir Tip had lived long enough to know that this spirit had characteristics upon which most trees could agree—those of vital, life-giving principals. But, he knew that the second one gave those traits a name—as BirchGod or Dogwood Divinity—many trees then abandoned the very qualities upon which this spirit rested. They took out their guns and starting shooting at each other in disagreement.

Wars erupted in the name of God to defend a name which by its very nature needed no defense. It was a worldwide dilemma of Treemendous proportion.

Then one day a bulldozer mowed down a nearby clump of trees, and Sir Tip noticed something strange. Though separate in their own right, all the tree roots were intermingled.

Each tree stood grounded in its own roots, but stood stronger

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through this weaving of its roots with others. “We are all woven together in one way or another for our own and others’ good,” Sir Tip noted to himself. He realized this idea could resolve his thankless task of bringing unity to the spirit of the trees through a name. Each could have its own name, yet each possess another with which to realize their connection.

“Divine Spirit of the Universe,” Sir Tip said to himself, but quickly grasped he had a marketing problem because it wasn’t a catchy phrase. So he tried an anagram of the first letters of each word: “D-S-O-T-U. (Dsotu)” “That stinks,” a gentle voice within him said. Sir Tip then tried many versions: “Todus”… “Studo”… “Tosud”…

“Sodut.” When he had scrambled the letters to exhaustion with no result, the voice within him spoke again: “Why don’t you just keep it simple—Universal Spirit.”

“US!” Sir Tip cried. “That’s it. We’re all in it together.

“US” will work.”

And so, in the annals of tree history, this is the legend of how “US” became the name for the Divine Spirit of the Universe for Treedom. After the revelation, Sir Tip bowed and gave breath to the first known tree prayer: “US, help us all.”

And, never again was there a war among the land of trees in the name of US about US.

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2

Ringmaster You will escape many things in life.

Sorrow is not one of them. —Treeverb

It didn’t take US too many years after he created trees to notice they lived longer and learned life’s lessons more strongly than any other part of creation. US also learned that each tree possessed stories that could assist in the difficulties of the poor wandering creature called humankind, which the Creator had also placed upon the earth.

“But so many trees and so many stories,” US thought.

“How shall this be organized?”

That’s when US created a dendrochronologist called the Ringmaster, whose duty became to know the stories of all the trees through the growth rings each possessed. The Ringmaster became a spirit that floated through the forest seeking troubled humans. They were in ample supply. Upon finding one, the Ringmaster matched the person with a story that would help in solving a particular problem. So it was on this day when the Ringmaster found a man bundled up in a red jacket wandering in sorrow through the woods.

“May I be of assistance?” the Ringmaster asked.

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“I have lost my son,” the man said through the hood of his tattered red jacket. “He is dead. It burdens me so that I wish death upon myself.”

The Ringmaster enveloped the man within his calming spirit. “I cannot heal this terrible burden,” The Ringmaster said. “Only you and father time are in charge of that. But, I can guide you to a story which provides a pathway to your healing.”

The Ringmaster gently led the man to Maple Stump #1971.

The man seemed saddened further to see the 3-foot diameter stump laid bare with over a hundred growth rings upon it. The Ringmaster softly placed the man’s forefinger on the stump’s 53-rd ring and the maple funneled its story of joyous sorrow into the man’s heart. ‡ “Friend” does not sum up what Chad meant to me. He was my heart. As saplings, we grew up side-by-side. We shared a million laughs, cried a thousand tears and our souls became locked together through this process of our youth. In the days, we wrestled with our twigs as they were whipping in the wind.

Our strength increased because of it, and we shared it with one another. Together, we shouted our dreams through the darkness of night—dreams of the time when out tips would touch the stars.

We forged a friendship deeper than the earth, and from it, both of us would grow up beside the other until our days were done. We weathered every wind and storm and taunted fate as youth is prone to do. And, we did so knowing we were separate, yet always together. It was the strongest bond of friendship that my life had ever known. It ended in a lighting storm within our 21st year. A bolt struck Chad low and clipped him clean through at his base. He fell toward me and I caught him in my limbs.

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“Oh, my friend,” he said to me, and back to him I repeated just the same. Within two days all his leaves and twigs were withered, dried and slumped. Within a week, my friend was gone.

For the longest time I denied it even happened, though the body of my friend still lay across my chest. Then, for years I cursed the heavens in anger. Nothing could contain my rage until the elements had reduced my friend to splinters, and he crumbled to the ground. That’s when sorrow took its hold on me. I wept with tears that stormed my heart and could not be consoled. When that was done, I sat stunned for years in misery, neglecting my own growth. Over and over I’d go asking, “Why did this happen?” And, “How could this happen?” Then I wondered whether I could have done something to stop it. A mountain of guilt overpowered me. My anguish deepened to the point that I wished that I had died instead of Chad.

Then one day in my 53rd year—still floundering in my woes—I heard a young tree far beneath me yelling to get my attention.

“I am a descendant of the seeds of Chad,” he shouted.

“Chad was my uncle, but since he died young, I did not get to know him. Those around me say he was a neat tree and you were close. Is it true? Were you his friend?”

At first I told him about how Chad died and it helped to get that out.

“But about his life,” the nephew pressed, “what was he like? I’d really like to know.”

“Absolutely wonderful,” I said through a lump developing in my core.

“Really!” the nephew asked excitedly.

“Oh, my little tree,” I said without a thought. “Chad was the best friend that any tree could wish for.” I shared how full of life Chad had been. I told him of our gags and dreams of 21 years and all the details. And slowly, through the stories,

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I found myself tickled in the telling. My sorrow waned as I forced myself to concentrate on the gift Chad’s life had been to me. Though the glow of our friendship spanned a short time, the closeness we shared shined brighter than any star living a million years. I realized what a prized possession I had in this friendship—how graced I’d been, even for a short time, to have him in my life. Just recognizing this changed me.

It helped me not to disregard his presence through my sorrow, but to celebrate him in my life as his nephew so unknowingly asked me to do. I understood the gift of Chad in my life. I shared all our wonderful stories well into the night. When I was done, the nephew had but one question.

“I know you were terribly saddened by Chad’s death,” the nephew said sincerely. “If you could go back and not have had Chad as a friend thereby sparing yourself the pain, would you do it?”

“Not in a million years,” I told him. “Not in a billion…”

Throughout the years thereafter, I saw the remaining bits and parts of Chad dissolve into the ground. As they sank into the soil, I felt the nourishment that his life provided me drawn through my roots. Body and soul, he had become part of me.

Honestly, I must admit that even today I still have my moments of sorrow. But my gratitude for his gift of friendship far overpowers them. He is always with me. I feel him in me. Who can live in constant sorrow with such a gift of joy? I learned nothing separates me from that joy but myself.

The man in the tattered red jacket sobbed as Maple Stump #1971’s story ended. A tearful lady who had been waiting in the distanced approached the man and helped him to his feet.

“Take some time to work through this. You cannot absorb it all at once,” Ringmaster told the man as they were leaving.

“When this story has placed you on the path to healing, I want you to come back to this very place. When you are ready there will be one last story from this stump’s final ring that will guide you to brighter days.” Using his new found friend

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as support, the man slowly left the forest.

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3

Tree Break The next time you see a tree in a hurry, let me know.

—Treeverb

The world is pressing in on you. An annoying flare of constant anxiety sizzles in your gut awaiting a fiery ignition.

‘Grouch’ is infinitesimal in describing your unhappiness.

Work stinks, life stinks, and you’re beginning to question the scent of your own decency. You live in an exhausted frenzy where calm is beyond reach in a far off world.

That’s when a friend says, “We all know where the phrase, ‘You oughtta,’ should be stuck, but you oughtta go to the forest and get some rest. You look awful.”

You decide to go and pack your bags. On your way out, you fail in avoiding Denel Nieght, the most obnoxious wimp in the office standing by the water cooler.

“Hear you’re taking a couple of days to hug some trees,” Denel says as he blocks your path. Then he proceeds with his repugnant habit. He launches into an off-color joke about a birch and a beech tree with a filthy punch line involving a woodpecker.

“Denel, you’re a vulgar pig,” you state while pushing past

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him. You drive at reckless speeds to the wood’s edge. As you walk on a path to the inner forest, you hear people inside a cabin yelling at each other. “Not even the forest can tone down the racket,” you moan. Then you arrive at the forest’s center and sit on a stump in silence, looking deeply into all that is around you.

Deep within a forest, one single glance takes in all of life.

It is so powerful in its majesty, so startling in its repugnancy, it overwhelms you. Living and dying, sorrow and joy, youth and age are painted together within a single frame. Injury and healing are neighbors, struggle and compromise friends. The raucous war of survival rages in a gentle peace. It is where tasteless laughter sits next to woeful tears and neither takes offense; where decency and debauchery dip their twigs into the same pond of worship; where beauty’s purest fragrance permeates the stench of life eating life to live. Within this glance, you are alone yet know that you are not. It is where all things have meaning within a whispered mystery.

Inspired by the glance, you jot upon a notepad:

‘Wind is a rare commodity on the forest floor.

Should nature be inclined to sell it, we’d pay a pretty price.’

“I haven’t written a poem since high school,” you think as you notice a gnarled tree. Its trunk is crooked, warped— unsightly. Its knotted limbs twist in and out in a convoluted mess. Then, you remember a phrase imbedded in your heart: “As the twig is bent, so the tree shall grow.” You ponder how you were bent and how you grew within the bending. Then, in memory’s maze you survey all the bends of friend and foe

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alike. A calming spirit enters you and you feel a soft, accepting smile upon your face. Each moment, each glance becomes a treasure. You pause, look up, and feel a kinship with the trees. It seems you have entered another world.

A mother raccoon stands beneath an elm watching over her boisterous babes. Their youth is inclined to hurt themselves, and in gentle, subtle moves the mother prevents the harm. Though her wisdom is ignored, there is no demand that it be noted. She acts only out of goodness for the protection of her clan. As you question whether there have been people like this in your life, a magnificent maple standing in a tiny clearing captivates your attention. You stand beneath it in silence, feeling like a child cradled within its limbs.

“Are you lost?” the maple asks through some strange internal voice.

“Well, yes and no,” you say. The maple seems to understand and wonders how he might help. You ask him about a prominent mark on his trunk shaped like the number eight lying on it side.

“My Mark of Goodness,” he says. “It acts as a reminder.”

“And, that stream beside you whose eddies are shaped somewhat like your mark?”

“That’s the Stream of Goodness. Once it’s waded into, your life goes on forever.”

“I don’t get it,” you state bluntly.

“At first, not many people do. Take things slowly. Sit over there near that grove. Think things over. Think not about yourself, but ponder me and see what it is that strikes you.”

Many hours pass as you quietly contemplate the tree. The voice again surges to the surface as you stand and break the silence.

“There are some hard facts with which a tree must live. A tree cannot escape anything the world around it dishes out. Its own protection is the inherent properties of its being. What it has to work with is itself.”

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For some strange reason, you begin calling the maple Mather and resume your observations: “If the wind blows too hard, it breaks. If a woodsman randomly plies his trade on Mather, if a careless camper’s fire runs amuck, Mather is no more. And yet, face to face daily with these harsh facts of potential woes, Mather pays no heed. For Mather has one priority and only one—to grow. And, he feels this an honored privilege deep within his roots. Each day—one by one—set upon this task, Mather draws life through leaf and limb to meet the morning sun with joy.”

You thank Mather and bid him a kind farewell.

“See you soon,” he says, as you promise another visit.

Back at the office you walk by Denel’s desk with a smile and cuff him on the head. “Denel, you are one big pain in the ass, but at the root of you is something good.”

Stunned, Denel offers no reply.

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4

Rules of “It-Tree” Which is more important, the name of a thing or its purpose? Search for the simplest code by which all life lives and therein—by whatever name—lie the basic roots of life.

—Treeverb

The first lessons learned among the trees are quickly forgotten, so you return to the forest.

“Teach me what I must know,” you boldly state as you throw your arms around Mather. Unruffled by your brashness, Mather’s tranquil voice trickles through the morning’s breeze.

“It is obvious you are living a life you think the world demands of you, not the life it needs of you. Your gladness suffers from it. Let’s start from scratch with a few ground rules.”

Mather explains to you that every species seeks a code of acceptable conduct—a guide to understanding how to sustain the spark of life within its living. For the tree, he says it is the Rules of It-Tree. Legend has it they came about long ago when a group of elder elms noticed that most trees suffered from about the same problems. They wrote the rules on a redwood stump and threw it in a volcano. When the mountain

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erupted, it sprinkled the ash of this wisdom upon specific trees throughout the earth. To this day, all trees have an inner inkling of this sprinkling.

“How shall I discover them?” you ask. “I am not a tree.”

Mather lowers a limb upon your shoulder.

“Each forest has one It-Tree to remind us of their common sense. Ours is that elm over there. Each limb contains one rule of It-Tree. As you touch a branch, it will reveal to you the single principle it possesses.”

You follow Mather’s suggestion, walk to the elm, and reach out your hand to a branch.

It-Tree One “I am the branch of Humil-It-Tree. I did not create myself, though at times I thought I did. That was embarrassing, but not without its humor. Here’s a story of its point: “There once was a majestic tree taking great pride in its location and stature, never once giving thought that chance, God, or the cosmos played a part in what it was. Its trunk was stately—round and straight. Nature had carved a mosaic pattern in its bark which lured many admirers to contemplate. There was no indecision in this tree’s growth. Its trunk rose twenty feet and then only eminent limbs of strength and beauty were allowed to pierce the sky. The tree reached to the heavens, sparkled in the daylight, and swayed in the breeze only casually for show. Passers-by would comment in awe, ‘Now this—this is a tree,’ and the tree and all its parts would gloat as its cousins in the distance bowed in admiration.

“With all this admiration, pride swelled through the seasons to a point of no return. Finally, towering above its siblings the tree took in a breath and declared to the heavens, ‘I am what all trees should be. I am King—Lord of the Trees,’ whereupon a small puppy stopped, sniffed, lifted his leg and

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relieved himself on the Lord of the Trees as all the cousins in the distance tried to muffle their twittering smirks within the breeze.

“Many years and several lessons later, this same tree stood as the brunt of a childhood prank. Toilet paper dripped from every precious limb and fluttered in the wind to advertise the spectacle. The tree could be embarrassed, but was not. The tree could be insulted, but decided not to be.

“Cloaked in a ridiculous shawl of flapping tissue, this stately tree stood calmly and bore with kind amusement the children’s game of growth. Many years and several lessons later, these same tricksters grew to adults. One by one they returned to the trunk of this childhood tree. Gazing upward for many precious minutes, they surveyed the limbs that embraced their youth and happiness. Several flinched when they thought of the time this noble tree had been draped in tattered tissue. Once again the tree looked down upon them in compassion. Its patience and Humil-It-Tree forged an understanding—a soft confession of the growth both had played in the other’s lives.”

It-Tree Two The next branch you reach for is large and casts a foreboding shadow. It frightens you. As you grasp it, it grabs you back and panic fills your heart.

“Hi, the branch of Anxie-It-Tree here,” the limb says while rattling your arm out of its socket. “As you notice, I am short, stout and pointed—life stopping, you might say.

Gradual exposure to the fear you think is behind me is the key. Avoid this, and I grow much larger than I am. I call it the Tadpole-to-Toadasaurous-Rex syndrome. Don’t get excited.

Just know this: You will have Anxie-It-Tree, if only to learn it does no good to have it. As far as we can tell, no tree has

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knowledge of tomorrow, and yet is born prepared to face it. If you know what is going to happen, you do. If you don’t, you don’t. Chances are you don’t. So what? How do you think my twigs feel as they shoot off into unknown space? A little anxious maybe, but they do it. And, by doing it they add to the beauty where only vapid air was before. They know the only thing that calms the Anxie-It-Tree of doubt is their faith in what they are doing is right. Understand that steady growth and faith in what you truly are—and meant to be—can handle whatever stands before you. That’s the gist of it. That’s the gift of it. The question is, will you believe it?”

It-Tree Three “You can see I weave around a little. That’s because I’m the branch of Flexibil-It-Tree. My dangled wrangling gives me poetic license—please bear with me. Bearing with me is the point of my story.

“Once upon a time, the wind socked a sturdy tree in the jaw. It was a sucker punch. The wind said, ‘Look over there!’ and when the tree turned, the wind hit him hard. Angry, the tree told itself it would never get caught off guard again— NEVER! So it made itself rigid to ward of the next attack.

Once again the wind struck and discombobulated all the tree’s branches. The wind swung around the tree in a swirl of abusive laughter and slipped away. Shaken, the tree devised a new plan and taunted the wind to strike again. The wind struck, and the ensuing battle lives as an epic poem in the annals of tree history: ‘In it came and struck at branches.

No blows hit, just minor glances.

The wind got mad and made a howl, And, I snapped back a bigger growl.

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‘It swung and hit and punched and threw— Kicked and screamed ‘til it was blue.

I dodge and ducked and worked around, And, through it all I held my ground.

‘What’s my secret—what’s the score?

What gave direction to my core?

It’s simple really, my dear friend: I finally learned that I could bend.’

“Please note, I could not be a Flexibil-It-Tree had I not been a Stabil-It-Tree first. Growth requires strength to sustain itself, and that means work. The heights to which we can grow are directly linked to the depths and effort we put into extending our roots into soils of our source. You can’t be a 100-foot tree with a two-foot root system.”

It-Tree Four “Howdy do! You know patience is a good thing, but not when you get it confused with Passiv-It-Tree. You have to wait around for it to rain, but once it rains, it’s time to stop sitting on your hinnie. Your roots are pipelines to the sustenance of life. They only draw in moisture when they’re extended.

Withdraw them in Passiv-It-Tree and it matters not how much goodness rains down around your trunk.”

It-Tree Five “Good to see you. I’m here to give you a little dose of Sensitiv-It-Tree to what you are and are not. Birds can fly because they have wings. You can’t because you don’t. Don’t

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get hung up about it. Somebody could cut you up and make an airplane out of you, and then you could fly. But, then you would be an airplane and not a tree. If you want to fly, don’t wait around to grow wings or for somebody to assemble you into an airplane. These things are not likely to happen. Instead, have Sensitiv-It-Tree to what gives you life and makes you grow. By doing so, you will grow tall, bear your fruit, and view things from lofty heights as if you were flying. Know that everything and everybody is on a pathway to this very same idea. If their path is different than yours, they are just flying on the same idea with different wings.”

It-Tree Six “Accept a great big welcome to you from me—the branch of Similar-It-Tree. I see you in me and me in you. It’s a fact that you are unique from other trees. You can dabble in the negative of this and invent a host of enemies all around you.

You can also decide that goodness loves variety and find yourself surrounded by friends with different roots.

Each tree is beautiful in its own way. In this is the truth of your own beauty. In the end, that’s about the only understanding you’re going to get out of life and about the only understanding you need. Have Sensitivi-It-Tree for the uniqueness of all things, yet know that when you love yourself and someone else, basically you are loving the exact same thing.”

It-Tree Seven “Greetings from the branch of Etern-It-Tree. Here’s hoping you know you are a piece of it. You will live far longer than other life forms upon the earth. Should you choose to do so, you will grow each day until your death. And, even when

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you die, the blessing of your growth will be the inspiration for other lives to come. Should you doubt the importance of this, I can only ask you to consider what this has meant to me.

“Speaking to my sapling son one day I told him, ‘Son, there is little I have learned in the years that I have lived. But, there is one piece of knowledge gained that I must share with you. We all fear the ending of ourselves and yet we live beyond that end, and this is how I know.

‘When I was young, a nearby neighbor man planted a tree when he was old. I did not know why, for he would not live to see it grow. He cared for it. Stared at it. And, at times, talked to it. It made me think he was very loony.

‘Then, the old man died. The tree is grown now, and in a way, the spirit of that old man lives within that tree. He knew that someday he would end. The closer to the end he came, the more he wanted something of himself to remain when he was gone. So, he planted a tree that would carry on his own special brand of caring. Through the goodness of his deed, I am reminded we all sow the seeds of our own Etern-It-Tree while we’re here. How we do that is up to us.

‘It’s hard for me now to look at any tree and not wonder who has planted it. What seeds of whose Etern-It-Tree does it carry through the years? No doubt, someone whom I’ve never met, but am akin to just the same. As far as humans go, I’ve never seen them so happy as when they go about the planting of a tree. It speaks of something special. It knocks the worry in them down a notch to know a part of them goes on when they no longer do. Son, it makes me think that we can join with what has been and what will be. And, by doing so, a precious piece of us grows on beyond our end.’

“When I was done, my son asked how it was that I knew all this. I told him I knew it because the tree the old man planted just happened to be me.”

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Epi-Log to Rules of It-Tree When you return to Mather, he swipes three separate branches across your face. Each bears the sting of a question.

“Have you found your Mark of Goodness yet?”

Silence is your answer.

“How about a dip in the Stream of Goodness?”

You try to speak, but jumble the answer into something about leaving your water wings at home.

“It’s not my fault,” you say guiltily, then lie about missing swimming lessons as a kid due to the measles.

On the third swipe, the branch invites you to enter a group of nearby trees called the Treasure Trove Grove for some instruction. Frightened by the treacherous terrain you have to traverse to get there, you take a pass. Then the large tree takes over for his branches.

“You call me Mather. What’s behind this name you give me?”

Calmed by a question you can finally answer you explain it’s kind of a Cuisinart linguistic thing.

“When we first met, I felt you embodied the best qualities of both a good mother and a father all in one. It gave me such comfort I named you a combination of the two—‘Mather.’”

“What a wonderful way to think of me. I accept the name with deep appreciation. Before you leave,” Mather adds, “grab a few leaves to keep you company. Each has a lesson in living from the tree it came from. When you’re not here and feel guidance is your need, press a leaf against your chest. A befitting story will begin flowing through your heart.”

“How do I know what leaves on which branches to pick?” you ask.

“You don’t choose them. They choose you. Life knows the lessons we need to learn.”

Mysteriously, you are drawn beneath a branch and very specific leaves drop into your pocket. As you begin to walk

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away, Mather calls out to you. “You have given me a name.

What is yours?”

“Ciiiiinnndddeeeeeeee,” you yell out from a distance.

As you walk away, you hear Mather trying out your strange, unfamiliar name from his upper branches.

“MMMmmm, Cin-Tree…what a lovely name.”

You smile and depart rather than stopping to correct him.

You sheepishly note to yourself it was the first time you ever interrupted yourself from correcting everybody about everything.

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5

Leaflet Trees have found a cure for the paralysis of indecision. Strangely, they call it a ‘decision.’

—Quote from 1st psychiatric botanist to study a tree Cindy Cavitts’ adopted kids ran wildly through the house while she curled up on the couch with a blanket over her head.

A stack of unpaid bills sat scattered on her desk, and the job she had to pay them was slipping down the tubes. Her dreams of law school had diminished to a distant fantasy.

“Quit hiding, Grumpy,” one child screeched.

“God, I want out of this,” Cindy murmured beneath the covers. Then she remembered the leaves from Mather’s limbs.

She laid one across her chest and fell into a calm sleep as the leaf’s story flowed gently through her dreams.

Bark and Bite I am a leaf that one day saw beneath me a man walking his young daughter, Sarah through the forest. The girl reached out to touch the bark of a beautiful elm.

“What’s this, Daddy?”

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“They call it bark,” the man said as he cupped Sarah’s hand in his and walked their fingers together up the crevices of the bark.

“Like a dog barks?”

The man smiled. “No, honey. It sounds the same, but it’s different. Bark for a tree is like a skin that protects it. Like your skin, it keeps things from passing through to the inside of the tree that might harm it.”

“You mean it doesn’t let anything in?” the girl asked in amazement.

“It lets things in, sweetheart. It just filters things a bit. Remember when you asked whether the bark is like a dog’s? In a way it is. Sometimes dogs growl not because they want to bite us, but because they want to warn us we are going someplace they do not want us to go.”

This confused Sarah. “So nothing ever bites the tree because it has a bark?”

“No, lots of things bite the tree—the wind, the rain, even the sun. The bark just makes sure that every little nibble doesn’t hurt it.” The father placed the girl’s forefinger between a bark crevice. “See how it is thin enough to let what the tree needs in, yet thick enough to keep a lot of petty things out?”

“How does the tree know how thick to make its bark?”

Sarah wanted to know.

“It kind of figures that out through time, honey. It decides what it can put up with and what it can’t and then settles on something.”

Sarah put her nose right up against the tree as if she was looking for something.

“What’s under the bark?”

“The core of the tree itself. It’s backbone,” the father said.

“It helps the tree stand up. Without it, the tree falls down.”

Sarah stepped back from the tree and looked up at the height of it. “How does the tree make its backbone so strong?”

The father chuckled. “Just like us, honey. Exercise.”

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‡ When Cindy awoke she removed the blanket, gathered her screaming children, and hugged them one by one. Through the following weeks she paid attention to their individual needs and by doing so, they began to do the same for her. She played with them and found herself enjoying the play herself.

“Grumpy” did not become “Happy” in an instant, but she was moving in that direction. Cindy began giving her children responsibilities so they could also feel the connection to their family.

None of this came easy. There were setbacks. But, with persistent effort a love within the family began its rooting process. Through this came a calming—a focus for the moments of beauty in the day. In the following months, Cindy settled her disputes at work and organized her bills. Then, one day, she decided to make a phone call. She smiled when the party she was calling answered.

“Northwestern University Law School. How may I help you?”

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6

Tree-ching Tools Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee.

—Job 12:8

Money was tight, and Cindy’s schedule grueling during law school. To calm herself, she made numerous visits to Mather’s forest. On one such visit, Cindy asked Mather what the little pieces of voiceless wisdom were that seemed to speak to her every time she walked the forest.

“These are Treeverbs, Treetales and Tree-ta-tudes” Mather chuckled. “And, if you’re lucky, you’ll get a little Poet-tree thrown in. Every forest has them. We use them to remind us of the wisdom we’ve gained throughout our years.

“I don’t understand,” Cindy said.

Mather explained how all living things are in need of both constant learning and a method in which to store these treasures. That learning comes from teaching tools imbedded in all of life around us. He remarked this wasn’t much different than what human’s had, although it might be a bit more advanced in its simplicity.

“Poet-tree is poetry,” Mather said. “Life is brimming with it. Treeverbs for trees are like proverbs of life’s little truths for

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humans. Treetales are the same thing, except a little longer and in story form. Tree-ta-tudes are like platitudes and fit somewhere between the verbs and tales concerning length. Combined together, we call them Tree-Ching tools.

“So, I should listen more closely?” Cindy asked wearily as she began her walk.

“Take your problems to the forest” Mather said. “The forest will reveal to you how it has found its peace.

Treeverbs * Trees learned long ago that the more things it tries to become, the harder it is to tell what it is. ** The only wealth a tree has is what it is. And, that pays for everything. *** Trees grow from the inside out. If its bark is out of whack, it doesn’t point branches, but looks for the problem within its core.

Tree-Ta-Tudes * A tree understands the width of its base must be capable of supporting the length of its height. It knows how it goes about striking this balance is not without risks. ** All parts of a tree transform the nourishment they receive to be used in the overall health of the tree. Not to do so would be to die. The degree to which each participates in this cycle determines its growth. *** Understanding the mechanics of survival does not grant a

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happy life, but not learning them insures no life at all.

Treetales * “A branch thinking he will grow himself larger than the tree to which he is attached is soon to learn his effort will mean the end of himself by toppling the very tree which gives him life,” a stately oak instructed one his pupils.

“Do humans understand this principle?” asked the pupil.

“Sometimes,” said the oak, “but they have grave difficulties applying it to their checking accounts. ** The Creator had a hard time urging a seedling to pop its head above ground. “It’s okay, go ahead. Do it,” He said.

“But, I don’t know what’s up there,” the seedling said fearfully.

“Well, you’re not going to find out unless you do it.”

That provided the needed tweak. “Wow!” said the seedling as he popped up for a look around. “This is unbelievable.”

“Were you expecting something less?” the Creator asked.

Poet-tree Steadily, grow strong.

Grow tall.

Grow old.

Experience of getting there Is living I am told. ‡ Cindy returned to Mather with a grin on her face, and without a word, slumped down on his trunk. Mather draped her

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in a blanket of warm leaves as she fell into a deep and peaceful sleep. Later, back in the city, she shoved her books aside and had dinner out with two classmates. In a dingy restaurant, Cindy’s giggles floated as pollen on the air. She and her friends ate and talked with glee while sipping sodas in plastic cups.

The next day she learned of a love in the world that created college grants for people just like her.

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7

Criminal-It-Tree We have finally discovered why the crime rate is higher in cities. People outnumber trees there.

—Quote from a future Justice Dept. crime study Rusty Rootless was a member in good standing with the Lords, with just one bad habit. He liked to read books by an author named Burroughs. Vicious insults had yet to break him of the habit. As Rusty mindlessly thumbed through his book in the treeless alley, he gave little thought to a faceless mother or an estranged construction-rich father whose guilt bartered for his absence through monthly installments of cash. Rusty had no reason to think of it. Except for one gang member, this was the norm. That one exception was Sam Ritana.

Sam had been a leading member of the Lords. He was unusual as gang members go—softhearted in the midst of toughness. Sam saw Rusty as a little odd, but took him under his wing. When Rusty screwed up, Sam would cover for him.

Though Rusty did not believe in God, he said many times, “Thank God for good Sam Ritana.” Sam was the closest friend Rusty had ever known. Rusty could be who he was with him.

He confided in Sam—trusted him with his life. But, Sam was the exception in a group of aimless, soul-murdered despera-

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does inventing vanished families through their own contrived code of viscous rage to fight the lie that concealed their emptiness. Of true family, they knew nothing; but all felt secure within the Lords while possessing no clue as how they became the largest and most feared gang within the city.

“Rusty, get your ass over here,” Prince yelled.

Startled, Rusty dropped his book and obeyed the order.

Before Rusty stood the reason. Prince had appeared out of nowhere and soon seemed to be everywhere back when the gang was in disarray due to its own blundering in petty crimes and in-fighting. Somebody thought his name was Bates, but nobody knew for sure. At first they called him Little Horn, owing to a small feminine nose on an otherwise perfectly muscular and handsome frame. Prince hated the name, but accepted it for the time it took him to tear his way to the top.

Instantly, Little Horn became the masterful planner of schemes for the goodness of the gang. He promised everybody everything, and at first, his deception delivered on the promise. His crimes were not for thrills, but paid in cash beyond treasures the gang had ever known. The cash turned to power and drew new members to their ranks. Initially, Little Horn gave credit to those who stood above him, claiming his leadership was but kind service to their needs. Through this deceit, the gang’s inept leaders grew fond of Little Horn. Yet, oneby-one, over time they seemed to tragically meet suspicious deaths in stunning capers connived by their favorite servant.

Sam Ritana was the first to go down in Little Horn’s scheme of terror. Good Sam Ritana’s death locked all of Rusty’s losses into one. “Where is there to run when there is nowhere to run,” Rusty thought to himself when it happened.

“That’s the cost of doing business,” Little Horn said coldly when a leader died. Then, at their funerals, he touted the highest tribute and cried the largest tears. The tears of treason gave the gang a grand showing of a heroic pirate’s plight. Each turned away the dead as a sad, but necessary tradeoff for the

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cash. When the last general fell, Little Horn took his rightful place. He announced his name as Prince. Those who whispered Little Horn were beaten to a pulp. Respect for Prince slowly turned to fear. His cruelty knew no limits. Suddenly, nothing anyone did was good enough.

Then subtly, Prince’s schemes reverted back to petty acts of meanness that caused feuding in the gang. Again, Prince tortured into submission any opposition until all who stood before him were nothing more than frightened vipers on a puppet string. Their war-like behavior, once ignited, could cause the kind of horror that gives pure hearts nightmares.

All traded their freedom for this scandalous security. Prince was now god of the Lords to whom all were forced to bow and pledge their allegiance to a brutal flag in this self-made army of doom.

“Know what you’re doing, Hump Stick?” Prince growled at Rusty concerning another caper.

“Yes,” Rusty said cautiously.

“Then go on my signal and don’t screw it up,” Prince snapped as Rusty darted to his assigned place for the plan.

Great excitement and a woeful dread tore simultaneously at one another in the pit of Rusty’s stomach. Each time, he wondered if this one act, this present deed would be the one that would shatter the ache that plagued his heart. No crime yet had dented the torment, and after each crime, the ache grew worse. Rusty stopped beneath the one lonely tree on De-Moan Drag. He nervously squeezed the Burroughs’ book in his hand as he looked up at the tree. Then, a dismal sadness overtook him—the spear of that constant ache piercing against his heart.

Rusty had no way of knowing his murdered soul was but temporary homicide.

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8

When the Bow Breaks If the tree core takes on rot, all its parts will suffer.

—Treeverb

Rusty’s heart pounded as he stood on the curb near a stoplight waiting to implement the scheme. When Prince gave the signal, Rusty took out a claw hammer hidden beneath his Burroughs’ book and firmly grasped its handle. A car stopped when the light turned and Rusty jammed the claw point into the right front fender, scraping its jagged edge all the way back to the taillight. Then, he ran. When the driver jumped out to pursue him, the gang pounced. Rusty looked back in horror as Prince beat the driver so viciously he ended up in a coma at a local hospital. That was not part of the plan. Nor was it part of the plan that an elderly onlooker would identify most of the gang members involved to the police.

“If anyone snitches, he’s dead meat,” Prince told the gang huddled around him in a precinct jail’s holding tank. On the next day, Rusty found himself riding a bus with bars on the windows heading to a backwoods, forested juvenile camp.

There, he and his friends of the same equation would await their arraignment for assault and battery charges and a possi-

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ble homicide indictment should the driver die. Camp officers ushered Rusty and his comrades off the bus with threatening shouts. They issued them tattered orange uniforms and instantly ordered them on a mission to clear brush from within the forest.

“What do we have here?” Prince snarled as he stumbled on a mother raccoon with her babes crawling around together in a brush pile. Prince growled at Rusty for noticing that each of the animals had a unique white stripe on their right shoulders.

“So what?” Prince said as he grabbed the mother raccoon by the throat and spread new orders for Rusty and the gang to follow. One gang member diverted the attention of camp officers under the pretense of heat exhaustion. While the officers attended to him, Rusty slid past them and pilfered a roll of twine out of their pickup. Prince wrapped the twine around the raccoon’s throat as Rusty tossed the line’s end over a maple limb and cinched it off. Then the two watched as the animal dangled in the air, wrestling and pawing at the sky for her life.

Mather had seen enough.

“I beg of you,” Mather pleaded, “stop what you’re doing.”

“Butt the hell out,” Rusty snorted to impress Prince of his loyalty. “It’s just a coon.”

“It’s a life, no different than you or I,” Mather countered.

“You the same as me!” Rusty shouted. “Look at that butt-ugly leaf of yours with the purple stripes all over it. It looks like varicose veins running down my drunk momma’s legs. That’s the difference, you leaf lizard.”

Mather let the comment slide through his branches and dissolve in the air without insult. “Please know these things you do here, you do for reasons you do not understand. Though I dislike what you do here, I care for what you are here.”

Mather’s response stunned Rusty. It was the first time in his life that anyone or anything had not returned one blow for another.

“Kiss my ass,” Prince snorted as two camp officers broke

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through the brush. They quickly hauled the boys away in handcuffs. Rusty nervously glanced back at the hanging scene.

Had he the power, Mather would have broken his own limb to save the animal. Instead, he was forced to watch the innocent animal twitch slowly to its death. It made even the wise old maple ponder the equations of hurt, hatred and sorrow.

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9

The Clearing No tree ever died saying, I wish I would have lived my life any differently than I did. —Quote from Henry David Treebo, an elder sage in treedom Trisha was smart. Very smart. That was her problem. She hibernated in her intellect.

Trapped within the cluttered closet of her head, she believed she could think herself out of everything. Instead, she thought herself into a befuddlement that left her afraid and lost. With the ghosts and goblins of her past rattling through her brain, Trisha could not become what she knew she was meant to be. Mather was accustomed to addressing such problems. When Trisha arrived in the forest, Mather softly explained the concept of the Tree-Ching tools to Trisha and sent her on a stroll.

Treeverbs TV: For a tree, life is its fun, its toil, its rest and its purpose.

TV: Life is the best and worst and everything in between. The

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sooner we accept this, the sooner life becomes the best and worst and everything in between.

TV: Man is the only species you will see who forgets that pain never gets better by doing things that make it worse.

Tree-ta-tudes Ttt: The truth of a tree is the tree itself. It is incapable of telling lies. To do so would mean not to be itself—which it won’t because it can’t—and remain a tree. Highfalutin’ as it sounds, it’s the truth.

Ttt: A tree does not worry about whether it will or will not grow. It does what is necessary to grow and trusts in the expected results.

Treetales TT: A bird began building her nest in the “V” of a branch.

The branch asked his mother why the bird was dragging dead twigs from all over the place rather than snapping off and using twigs right from their own tree.

“I think it’s kind of a code among birds,” the mother said.

“They build nests in us, but not out of us. Kind of respectful, if you ask me.”

“And all we offer to them is just what we are, a suitable and sound place to cradle their renewal?” the young branch asked.

“Exactly, the mother said. “It is a type of trust intuitive in nature. We do what is best for us. The birds do what is best for them, and then we both present the best of ourselves to each other.”

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“I like being part of that,” said the branch.

“So does the bird,” the mother said.

TT: “A worm chewed a hole in me,” a worried leaf said to his mother branch. The branch thought for a while.

“Don’t worry about what’s gone. Concentrate on what’s left,” she stated.

TT: An old tree and a sapling sat watching a novice camper below them as he tried lighting a fire by sticking a Bic lighter under a two-foot diameter piece of oak. “Doesn’t he know about kindling?” the sapling asked.

“Pay no attention,” the elder tree said. “Humans are prone to starting out as the boss and working their way down to the mailroom.”

TT: A woman positioned her mouth beneath a leaf in the morning dew and caught a droplet on her tongue. Though uncommon, the drink was exquisite, the act so exhilarating the woman painted a lovely watercolor of the scene. Sometimes escaping normal is the spark of inspiration.

TT: A distraught tree walks into a psychiatrist’s office and says, “I don’t know who I am anymore. The doctor suggests the tree put a sign on itself stating: “Who Am I?” then attach a suggestion box below it with a pencil for others to write their opinions. A week later the tree opens the box and is surprised by all the answers: A bird writes, “You are my home and all its warmth.” A neighbor says, “You’re a prick. Your leaves blow all over my yard.” A married couple explains the tree is where they shared their first kiss, and the tree’s owner states, “You provide shade to my house and save me oodles on my electric bill.”

The tree goes back to the doctor’s office and wonders how he can be so many different things to so many of US’s cre-

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ations. The psychiatrist explains they are just opinions stemming from what other people think about how you fit into their own experiences.

“But what about what I think!” the tree exclaims.

“The doctor smiles and says, “Now we’re getting down to the problem, aren’t we.”

Poet-Tree I don’t think I shall ever see Anything as beautiful as me.

And, of course you…

But, that’s not who we’re Talking about here, Are we?

Uncluttered Dia-log “Learn anything?” Mather asked Trisha when she returned.

“Yes, plenty, Trisha said, “but my mind is so mangled I’m afraid I shall forget it.”

“Then you need to meet Mango. He once was contorted just as you.” Mather pointed to Mango and instructed Trisha to direct her questions to Mango’s bottom branch.

“Mather says you have a story for me,” Trisha hollered to the branch as she arrived at Mango’s trunk.

“That I do,” the branch said sprightly. “Listen closely. I didn’t want to be a good branch. I wanted to be a great branch.

Greatness, yes—that’s what I was after—do something special to make me stand out from all the others. Growing leaves is what branches do, so I decided I would grow more leaves than any branch before me. I would become the best branch ever.”

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“What happened?” Trisha asked.

“I cluttered myself,” the branch said, “and I lost myself in the confusion. In my search to find myself, I disguised myself until I could no longer see who or what I was. The leaves, which I thought would make me great, became my biggest burden. I started to crack and bow from all the weight. Damn near killed myself in the process.”

“So, what did you do?”

“A little house cleaning. Shook off a few leaves. Once the clutter was gone I found what I was looking for. It was always there underneath the clutter.”

“And, you did this all by yourself?” Trisha asked.

“We never do anything all by ourselves,” snapped the branch. “My problem was I thought we did. One summer night when my butt was dragging from all the weight I saw a happy neighbor rattling with joy in the wind. Unlike me, he seemed burden free and I asked him how this could be. He told me my burdens were self-imposed. It ticked me off to hear it.

I didn’t want to listen, but he was a true friend and persisted.

He told me he had learned a long time ago that he could not do everything, but he could do one thing and decided to do that very well. He said when he stopped taking on things he could not handle, he started handling the things he could better. I took from his message that we all have a breaking point.

Because we do does not mean there is something wrong with us. It simply means our gift of life resides within a certain framework. The hard part is accepting just exactly what that is. And, that takes getting rid of the clutter that obscures the frame. That’s a chore for sure, but not a curse. Once done, the blessing derived from it is that we finally have our own personalized frame in which we can paint the picture of our lives.

Without it, we are but meaningless paint splotches scattered over everybody else’s canvas. If you look at my neighbors and me, you will notice some pretty good masterpieces within many separate but connected frames. All masterpieces need a

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frame. Any insight in the story for you?”

“The simplest thing in life is to make it difficult. The hardest and most fruitful is to keep it simple,” Trisha said.

“Exactly. It was so obvious it almost escaped me. Through this process a clearing comes.”

“Is there such a clearing in the forest?”

“Just up ahead,” the branch replied. “Try it out. A clearing is for finding who you are, for all alone you sit with yourself within it.”

Trisha journeyed to the circular opening in the forest and sat upon the marsh grass beneath the clearing’s one lone walnut tree. Slowly she felt the clutter crumbling from her mind.

The more it did, the more she realized that what she was to become was nothing more than what she was always meant to be. And she began the journey toward accepting it. The walnut tree above her sensed her thoughts.

“Only when you fix your eyes on the ball can you then catch and run with it,” the walnut tree said.

“This seems like a strange time for baseball analogies,” Trisha quipped.

“Maybe so, but there’s a reason for it,” the tree explained.

“This clearing has a special meaning for acceptance of our role in life. For within this very clearing one of the greatest games of baseball was played to no avail.”

The walnut tree then dropped a leaflet upon Trisha’s chest.

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10

Leaflet:

Tree Strikes and You’reOut…Plus One Somewhere in the Universe before life’s journey begins, the Creator and the soon to be created exchange lofty words of weighty hopes and promises. Many are forgotten by the created through the trauma of their births. It is said some created spend a lifetime trying to remember what was said…

—Bhagavad-Tree-Ta: Branch Two

I am a leaf upon a walnut tree with but a simple story to tell.

It was handed down to me through the telling of my ancestors.

They knew these things: What once was known as America’s national pastime owes its fame to trees. Bats are made of wood. When the game first took its modern shape in the mid-1800’s, about the only substitute for a wooden bat would have been a lead pipe. Any effort to swing that around at the plate would have doomed the game to perdition before it got to second base. Trees take great pleasure in this part we’ve played in the game. But, we realize

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it was only just a part—there were others.

Hotdogs, popcorn, and chewing tobacco also sowed their seed in making the game an American institution. But there was one item that drew all these things together and put baseball on the American map permanently—a poem called Casey at the Bat. It was a Greek tragedy in a rustic ditty for the masses stating that the heart of our hopes could strike out and life would go on. The verse captured the country’s heart and tied America and baseball one to another forevermore. How it came to be written—and what it did to the man who wrote it—is a Greek tragedy in itself.

Ernest Lawrence Thayer died with a heartfelt disappointment as big as home plate. Son of a wealthy industrialist, Thayer was a dazzling student of the classics at Harvard in the early 1880’s. Famed philosopher William James dubbed Thayer one of his most brilliant students. Thayer had a couple stellar classmates who would also rise to fame—poet-philosopher George Santayana and media mogul William Randolph Hearst.

When Hearst graduated and took over his father’s newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, he convinced Thayer to write a humorous column for the paper. Thayer deemed the column mindless garbage, but continued writing it for three years. One morning near the end of his tenure he needed a little foolish fodder to fill out his column. In twenty minutes he sat down and wrote Casey at the Bat. The poem appeared in the paper on June 3, 1888. Shortly thereafter, Thayer decided to distance himself from the drivel. He packed his bags and moved back east to run his father’s manufacturing firm.

Almost before he got there, Casey at the Bat had hit a heartfelt nerve in America’s consciousness and become an instant success. It was such a hit that several opportunistic newspaper editors around the country claimed they had penned the poem themselves. Turn-of-the-century actor De Wolf Hopper made a living off the poem, reciting it on thousands of occasions

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during his lifetime to rave reviews and drooling crowds. From then on, and far past the middle of the twentieth century, no self-respecting English teacher would let a poetry class go by without Casey at the Bat hitting leadoff. Simple in verse and strong in message, teachers knew it was the one poem that could get even the dullest of students’ blood to boil. Quite an accomplishment for twenty minutes of work.

Although Thayer had written a classic, he was miserable about it. The more fame the poem gained, the more despondent Thayer became. For years, Thayer refused to admit authorship of the poem. When he did step up to the plate, he found the fame contemptible. Brilliant as he was, Thayer thought himself a philosopher and only that. He sat by as his friends William James and George Santayana enjoyed worldwide recognition for the depth of their literary philosophy.

All Thayer felt he would be remembered for would be a shabby piece of schlock called Casey at the Bat. Failing to see the light that could turn this fate into meaning for himself, Thayer found himself within the grips of a deep and dark depression.

The Lightning Bug In the black of an August night, Ernest Thayer walked through a forest in a stupor. He carried a flask in his coat pocket should he feel the need to numb himself more than he was already. Thayer stopped before a maple and noticed a lightning bug as he tossed a rope around the tree’s lower branch.

“I’ve always wondered where your light in this darkness comes from?” Thayer asked.

“From within,” the bug said.

A sharp pain seared Thayer’s chest the moment he heard the answer. Then he took a big swig from his flask and fell unconscious on the ground.

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A Moment with Mather The next morning, Thayer woke up hung over and morose.

Again he tossed the noose-laden rope over the tree limb.

“Are you sure you want to dispose of all things at your disposal?” Mather asked gently.

“I’ve no other choice,” Thayer responded. “They’ve ordered me into something I do not wish to be. I will never escape it.”

“Look at all the little saplings, Ernest. The forest has only one order—get to life as soon as possible. Seems you have other plans.”

“This is not the life I want.”

“It’s the only one you have.” Mather realized he was getting nowhere. “You’re a trained philosopher and have knowledge of the great dialogues, correct?”

“That I do,” Ernest said with great hubris.

“Well, what you don’t know,” Mather explained, “is they started with trees. One tree in particular. He’s one of the oldest known living trees and contains five thousand years of wisdom. People in America know him as the Methuselah Tree—a bristlecone pine in the California Mountains. No one knows exactly where. Park rangers won’t tell for fear people will take to chopping at it and start selling its parts on eBay. Not to worry. I’ve got contacts that can get you in. Ernest, before you fall off a limb, I want you to talk with this tree.”

Ernest took Mather’s advice and soon found himself sitting beneath the sage’s limbs.

Dia-log with Socra-trees (In regards to being Ernest) Ernest: I want to be known for the classics—not rubbish.

Socra-trees: Have you written any lately? Trees must de-

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cide what course we will take within the lot where we were planted.

Ernest: My friends are known for great things. I belong up there with them.

Socra-trees: No matter how tall we get, we cannot block the beauty of another tree. If that is our intentions, then our roots are pretty shallow.

Ernest: I am a great philosopher. I want to be known for that.

Socra-trees: What we are, we are. What others say we are is up to them.

Ernest: But, I want to go down in history— Socra-trees: —Trees are not in charge of that. Nor are you.

A tree knows it will not be tomorrow what it is today whether that be taller, shorter, dead, or a Stradivarius.

Ernest: That is not what I wanted.

Socra-trees: A tree lives with no regrets. To live, a tree must grow beyond them by making the best of what we are. We don’t have the luxury of bending too far away from reality.

Ernest: Then all is wasted…

Socra-trees: Nothing in nature is ever wasted.

Ernest: Then what is there to do?

Socra-trees: Growth starts when you stop doing nothing. A seed would remain a seed had it not stuck its neck out. That’s all I have for you Ernest.

Ernest: That’s pretty short.

Socra-trees: Life is short. Good luck… ‡ Game of the Cen-tree “My burden is not lifted. It’s hopeless,” Ernest said as he returned to Mather with his rope in tow.

“In winter, snow can be a weighty burden if one does not believe in spring,” Mather said, and decided to give it one last

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chance. Mather summoned all of his being into a prayer and sent Ernest to the forest clearing.

“Oh, dear US, come to this man,” Mather prayed. “For if you don’t, all is lost.”

Suddenly a dreamlike vision overtook Thayer, and he found himself standing at home plate in the clearing surrounded by the prophets and the Gods. All were cleated, pin-striped, and ready for a game. The spirit of all past philosophers sat upon the bleachers—each a heavy hitter. Christ was pitcher, and a walnut tree was the mound. Confucius caught behind the plate. Buddha dressed in black stood as umpire of the game.

“Batter up!” Buddha yelled and Ernest raised his bat.

“Do you remember the promises, Ernest?” Christ asked as he hurled a slider and Ernest knocked it foul.

“You got a piece of it, Ernest,” Aasif, an Islamic cleric, yelled from second base. “Your life is this game, Ernest. Don’t you get it?”

“Get what?” Ernest asked as a ball high and outside swished by him. A young boy in the bleachers caught it and turned to his neighbor.

“You know,” the boy said, “I’m thinking the Gods are dead with this one.

“This isn’t a crowd that would find that convincing,” Nietzsche told him.

“Come babe. Come Son. Put ‘er in the ol’ pud,” Confucius hooted as encouragement to Christ then turned an equal concern to Ernest.

“My dear man, some people take 30-to-40 lifetimes to get through your simple dilemma—have you pulled people together or torn them apart? Whether you like it or not Ernest, your little ditty pulled them together.”

Ernest paid no heed. Christ slammed a fast ball into the strike zone and Ernest let it zoom by. Then Ernest took the bait of a change up, swung furiously and missed.

“What a screw!” Ernest howled, slamming his bat on the

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ground.

“Don’t be discouraged,” Aristotle hollered from the stands. “Man is a divine idea.”

“Not one that pops up when the prison chaplain has lunch with the warden,” Nietzsche whispered shrewdly.

“These are uncertain times,” Ernest moaned.

“As has every day been since Eden,” Christ responded as he pumped in an unruly curve.

“Where’s the joy in this?” Ernest pleaded.

“That’s your job,” Confucius said. “These guys just provide the diamond. Don’t gripe. You’ve already got three strikes. They’re giving you four.”

“America has placed me on a pedestal of poppycock,” Ernest screamed to the heavens.

Concerned about this outburst, Vishnu—the first base coach—drew Ernest aside for a private pep talk. He explained that America is the only place where a book titled How to Cheat Your Way into Heaven can end up on the best seller list and remain there until the masses drifted to another cult alleging you could buy tickets for an alternative final destination on the planet Gortun which has crap tables. Unfazed by the comment, Ernest watched as Christ hurled another fastball.

“Strike four!” Buddha yelled.

The failure stunned the Gods. Brahman, the third base coach, approached and instructed Ernest that very rarely do Gods come right out and tell the created what their purpose is in life. But, because Ernest was such a knucklehead, they had no other choice.

“You are a classic philosopher,” Brahman said. “That means you are a teacher. You only thought of it one way. Open your mind and put your heart into it. This little poem of yours may not be a classic in the sense you want—but it is a classic in its own right. It tells people what they need to hear. The major thing you learn from losing is you don’t always win. So what.

Move on.”

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“To where?”

“Take this little poem and read it to the masses. Then, after you do, bring all of your knowledge of the classics to bear and show people how they are no different than any others that have every lived in history. Share your experience on faith and fate. They will listen.”

“Enlighten them, Ernest. Enlighten yourself!” Buddha shouted.

“So this is your purpose—the proverbial ball in your strike zone,” Brahman continued. “You must swing at it with all your might. Hold nothing back. If you do, your life will be a dream far beyond your fantasies.”

“But, that is not what I wanted,” Ernest said. “I have become a laughing stock to all my colleagues.”

“And, now you are a crying child within the cell of your self-made crib,” Brahman said. Silence swept the field. Those on the bleachers cringed. The Gods wept as Ernest slouched off the field. ‡ “I am Casey,” Thayer said despondently when he returned to Mather’s trunk.

“You don’t have to be,” Mather said. “A mistake is only costly when it’s uncorrected.

Ernest bid goodbye to Mather and was never to see him again. Mather pondered a most tragic thought as he watched Ernest walk away: “Sometimes you can do all you can do and not even the Gods can change the outcome.”

Eulogy Tree After the game, Thayer refused to turn his twenty minutes of work into a lifetime of purpose. He quit his job and

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traveled aimlessly around the world on his father’s money. He did settle down and marry. He published some classical poems—none of any importance. And, he did upon request from friends recite Casey—but not with any enthusiasm. Later in life, Thayer became ill. He is quoted as saying, “Now that I have something to say, I am too ill to say it.”

In a walnut shell: Thayer failed to look through the eyes of his heart to make good on his fate. Therein is the tragedy not only of Casey, but the author who created him: “Oh, Somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright, The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light; And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout, But, there is no joy in Mudville—Mighty Casey has struck out.”

Epi-log During his final illness, Thayer took one last walk within a grove. He saw the colorful leaves of fall answer man’s one main question: “Was it worth it?” Immediately afterwards, Thayer again sat down and wrote a verse in twenty minutes.

He had it placed in his will to be given to his closest living relative in fifty years—whoever that would be. Ernest Lawrence Thayer died in Stockton, California in 1940. ‡ A robin tweeted as Trisha awoke with a fresh outlook garnered from the leaflet tale.

“So, a sincere trust is what it’s all about in being what we are meant to be?” Trisha asked the walnut tree.

“That and a good deal of honest work,” the tree responded. “All the instructions for becoming a large wonderful tree are contained within the small seed from which it grew.”

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The walnut tree then dropped another leaflet of a far off place and it fluttered down into Trisha’s heart.

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11

Treeless Leaflet A tree does not bear good fruit to make itself good. Its fruit is a product of its own ingrained goodness. —Johnny Appleseed

High amidst the rain forest, Lea’aetoa Hafit sat forlorn on a cliff at the opening to his peoples’ most sacred island’s ceremonial cave. The burden of breaking Tonga’s oldest ancestral tradition hung as heavy on his heart as the weight of the waves he watched crashing below on his small island’s reefs.

Hafit knew the burden was uniquely his. Bereft of a solution himself, Hafit prayed, believing the answer must surely rest with the Gods.

Not long after Hafit’s ancestors first waded ashore more than three thousand years ago and began inhabiting this 170-plus-island archipelago in Western Polynesia, a man calling himself Malo created an ancient kingdom. All of Tonga’s present day 100,000 population, its devotional ceremonies, and clan customs trace back in one fashion or another to this dynasty. The one tradition involving Hafit’s problem connected all of Tonga’s island trees and the very cave where Hafit stood.

In the early days, Malo came to realize that deep within the

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heart of all his people resided a universal spirit of goodness— one that orderly encompassed all the power of past and future and resided in the present. Through it, he saw societal clans of decency grow and spread to dot the islands of his kingdom.

Malo also saw the struggle his people had in staying linked to this spiritual force in their daily lives. So, through his wisdom, Malo devised a custom which forevermore tied this spiritual strength of his peoples’ past and future to the present in which they lived. He called it Malo Palo.

Having gained his wisdom from lessons in living from a tree, Malo henceforth decreed that each clan take charge of recording its lineage through this specific ceremonial practice.

Malo directed each clan to weave an intricate wreath from the bleached fibers of pandanus and coconut leaves. They were then to select a single tree from the thousands of species on the islands. From that time forward Malo instructed—for however long the Creator deemed forever to be—the clan and each person in it would be identified and distinguished by the leaves of that tree and the lessons it offered.

A massive cave with many passages was chosen on the highest peak of an uninhabited volcanic island in Tonga’s isolated Niuas rain forest chain. Upon its walls were painted all the islands of Tonga. The wreath of each clan was attached to its respective island. Throughout the ages, one venerable man in each generation was appointed to a lonely, but honored lifelong position as “Cavekeeper.” There the man lived alone to maintain the spirit of his people and host the sacred ceremonies within the cave.

When each child reached the age of 15, he or she was dressed in a decorative Ngatu gown woven from the bark of a mulberry tree. Then, all his or her closest relatives accompanied the child in an arduous canoe journey to the island of the cave where the youngster would receive the ceremonial rite of passage into the spirit of the people. Upon arrival, the Cavekeeper greeted the child and family. And so it was today

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as Hafit the Cavekeeper took the hand of a pensive 15-yearold girl named Taluki and lead her and her family deep into the cavern to begin the elaborate ritual. ‡ “From which island and clan do you come?” Hafit asked the girl.

When Taluki answered, Hafit guided the group to a passage where the clan’s wreath hung on the cave wall over the painting of their island. Hafit placed his torch in a holder and organized the relatives in a circle. He and Taluki took their place within the circle to begin the ceremony.

“I see the leaf of the ironwood tree is the symbol of your clan’s soul.” Hafit said. “Look upon your wreath, Taluki,” Hafit instructed. “Within it resides the spirit from which you came, who you are now, and the seeds within you symbolizing all our futures.”

Taluki stared at the wreath and within it saw many leaves.

Each leaf carried the signature or sign of one clan member.

Together they embodied all Taluki’s clan members past and present. In a childlike awe Taluki scanned beyond her clan’s wreath and saw how it was connected to other clans not only on her island, but also to everyone on all the islands back to the beginning of her people. In the quiet cavern, with only the hollow sound of the wind scraping against the cave entrance to break the silence, her relatives reverently looked on for hours as Taluki traced her lineage through the woven wreaths. And in the end, Taluki understood how all the clans were kinsmen, friend, and family.

“Do you now see your connection?” Hafit asked breaking the silence. “Do you see from where you came? Where you are now? And where you are going?”

“Yes, I see,” ‘Taluki responded. Hafit placed the child’s face within his hands.

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“Do you see your place within the spirit of this expanding creation of which you are a part?” Hafit asked gently.

“Yes, I see,” Taluki said again.

“Then you know,” Hafit continued, “with this wisdom comes a responsibility to the past and future through honesty to yourself and others within the present. Today, now, and forevermore you enter this spirit and it enters you and this bond is sealed in blood. Hafit took out a knife and cut a short but deep gash in the meaty portion of the palm on the girl’s right hand. A relative handed Taluki the tip of a Pelican feather. Taluki dipped the tip in her wound and wrote her name on the ironwood leaf attached to the side of her gown. When the blood dried and her wound bandaged, Taluki rose and forever entered the spirit of her people as she placed her leaf within her clan’s wreath.

Taluki returned to the center of the circle, and her family began to dance. Through the intricate movements of the lakalaka dance, the ritual’s story was told through song and gestures of hands and feet. By doing so, the spirit was given a physical presence and soundly grounded within Taluki’s soul. When the dance finished, the elder clan member handed Taluki her fist cup of Kava. As she drank, the clan roared as a welcoming for Taluki to take her place in the world of her peoples’ expanding creation.

When the ceremony ended, Taluki and her clan left the cave to the words of Hafit—the same words Hafit spoke to every person to whom he had ever administered the ritual: “Practice what you learned here in all you do. If you ever lose the sprit that now resides in you, return here and regain it again. All of what you come from and will be flows from the gift received here today. It is here today. It will be here tomorrow if you are in need.”

And, the return journeys to the spirit cave have always been and will always be a common and frequent occurrence within the lives of Tonga’s people.

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No Tongan you will ever meet will tell you of Malo Palo— The Spirit Cave’s Leaf Ceremony—or the location of the cave in which it’s held. It is Tonga’s sacred secret. Tongans are friendly, loving people. They will show you the Ha’amonga’a Maui (Trilithon) monument erected by their ancestors some 800 years ago, and tell you the three coral-lime stones from which the arch is made weigh in excess of 40 tons. They will direct you to the coastline where Mapu’a ‘a Vaea blowholes shoot waves fifty feet in the air through coral rock. They will even guide you to the sacred Langi terraced tombs where the bones of their ancient dynasty rest. But of the cave and its ritual, no mention is ever made.

They will not talk of it, for the Spirit Cave and the path leading to it are within their hearts the footprints to God. Not in the beginning nor to this day has any Tongan, save one, ever revealed to an outsider the cave or the ceremony held within.

Yet, through nearly three-thousand years every present Tongan and all his ancestors have partaken of Malo Palo. About as close as an outsider can come to it is through a Tongan handshake. They will gently grasp your hand, knowing through the touching of the scar on their inner palm, that you unknowingly are embracing their soul with a greeting. And, if you look close when it is done, you will see a twinkle in the Tongans’ eyes and a grin upon their faces for they know our ignorance of the weighty matter within our hands. ‡ As the nearest country lying west of the International Dateline, Tonga is the first in the world to greet the rising sun of each new day. It is also the first to see that day sink into night. Within this approaching darkness, Hafit sat on the cave cliff with the burden of his peoples’ soul resting heavily upon his heart. Taluki’s clan had selected the last species of tree remaining on the islands. There were no more. And, Hafit knew

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its consequence. New clans were about to break off. They would have no tree to guide them or leaf for Malo Palo to enter the spirit of their people. Seemingly, Tonga’s ever-expanding creation had come to its end.

Many times, a person reaches a point in life where the only thing he has left is his faith and the hope that resides within it. Hafit looked to the eastern stars and envisioned there were many trees in distant lands beneath them. Was he to go to them, or they to come to him? Hafit’s thoughts turned to what his elders taught him of the spirit world in his youth.

Hafit knew, as few others do, that the settling concept of faith is you do not have to have the answers at the time you think you need them. The Creator is not something you go to with an agenda. If one is open, it works the other way around. Hafit made his prayers accordingly. That done, with the soul of his people resting on his faith, Hafit entered the cave and laid upon his mat. A quiet happiness came over him as he entered into his dreams. It was a simple but strong acceptance of the Great Reality: That which will be, will be.

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12

Treasure Trove Grove Go to the forest alone. Only then will all voices be reduced to one, whispering with strength the bold truth within you. —A counterthought from a constant parry within our mind to do exactly the opposite Trisha wandered toward Mather under a pink-hued sky whose melted colors and peaceful lights she stared at but could not understand. Even the relationship of the surrounding trees seemed foggy and perplexing.

“What,” she asked, “are the links that bind all the trees together even though each of you seem so very different?”

“Our deepest treasures lie within this mystery,” Mather said. “Think but once you know it and it evaporates before your eyes and swells beyond the thought. Encircle it as a stagnant form and it instantly grows beyond the boundary you have set for it.”

“That doesn’t give me much to stand on,” Trisha answered.

“Trees stand and grow on this very thing. We embrace it with our lives.”

“Then what of the deepest treasures?” Trisha wondered.

Mather pointed to the Treasure Trove Grove and explained that the spirit of mystery’s riches resided within it—a place

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where nothing is a done deal and everything leads into something else.

“Go there and see for yourself,” Mather said. “And, say hi to Elmbert for me.”

“Who’s he?”

“An honored tree whose brilliant theories have given treedom’s freedoms many joys.”

Getting to the grove looked like a cakewalk, but a short distance is not always an easy hike in unfamiliar terrain. Trisha’s muscles ached as she struggled up hill after hill. She clawed through brush and thickets that deeply scratched her soft and rosy skin. Disheveled though undaunted, Trisha persisted and arrived at the grove’s entrance.

“Will you accept my invitation to enter?” Gracey, the lady spirit of the Grove, asked.

Trisha nodded.

“Then there is but one question you must answer. When is the sky in its most exquisite color?”

Tired from the trek and befuddled by the question, Trisha slumped against the tree for the longest time. Then she remembered.

“At dusk or dawn, Trisha said. “When the darkness meets the light or the light meets the darkness.” Trisha looked up at the sky’s pinkish hues that in her mind just moments before were muddled streaks. Now, they took on meaning and Trisha felt the peace it gave her heart.

“Enter, my good and faithful friend,” Gracey said.

Trisha felt an ecstasy overtake her as she stepped into the Grove. Before her stood the miracle of life in motion portrayed through an interchange of every tree species upon the earth. Each of Trisha’s steps that took but a second became a year of changing time to the trees and all their parts. With their separate, yet intertwined branches, roots, and leaves, Trisha marveled at the constancy of everything connecting and disconnecting, then reconnecting with something else in a for-

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ward-blazing speed. To grasp it fully was impossible. To stand in awe of it was delightful. Each tree stood within a different season and each in unlike stages within the seasons. And yet within this seemingly confusing puzzle, Trisha sensed each item relied on an invisible, but palpable trust that everything was clear in what each needed to do.

When Trisha stopped, the movement stopped. There she saw similarities among all the differences, the points of their connection and disconnection, and the reason why each was being drawn together or pulled apart. Only in this still calm of silence from her halting repose could she grasp nature’s inherent necessity in its cycle of give and take. But, the motion began again the second she took a step. It was a treasure of constant discovery.

Trisha walked and stopped, and walked and stopped, and each time she felt indecision on where to walk, one lone owl landed on her shoulder and whispered in her ear. Inspired by this lofty discourse, Trisha made a decision and confidently walked on. This happened many times, for within all the movement and commotion, Trisha would forget what her decision was, and the owl would remind her.

Then, one-by-one, she met scores of individual trees—the Tree of Patience, the Tree of Self-Control, and many more.

Each spent as much time with Trisha as she needed to fully understand them. After each encounter, a deep, mysterious glow enveloped Trisha’s heart. Gathered into one, all the trees seemed to form a miraculous character as to how trees existed together, yet at the same time played their own individual note in the rise and fall and rising again of life’s musical score.

Near the end of the grove, Trisha came upon what looked to be the most insignificant and scraggly tree within the forest.

It seemed a contradiction to itself. Though trifling in its seeming nothingness, a hundred little fairies scampered around feeding its roots only the best nutrients the forest had to offer. Residing in its trunk roots sparkled chests full of trea-

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sure—wealth beyond one’s wildest dreams, but in a different form than most would think. And because of it, this small tree, dwarfed by all its neighbors, grew the sweetest fruit the forest had ever tasted.

A bent over old pine, strangely resembling a human form, quietly organized the little details of the fairies work. He executed his duty in a humbled, yet passioned way as his wild, gray, twiggly locks tousled in the wind.

“You must be Elmbert,” Trisha said. “Mather spoke of you.”

“Yes, Elmbert Pinestein,” the form said as he reached out a twig embracing Trisha’s hand.

“How was it that you came upon these joyful theories of life that Mather mentioned?” Trisha asked.

“It’s the small things I did that counted. Yet I did not understand how each of all these little things I did had any bearing on the other. I thought there must be some correlation to the pieces, but I was bamboozled as to what it was.”

“I think I think too much myself. What did you do?” Trisha asked.

“I finally realized all the little things were nothing more than a process of getting myself into a position to be made aware of their connection to something greater. The intellect is one thing on the road to discovery, but only one. There were others. A belief and trust that I was onto something was equally important. Diligence and patience paid off. Suddenly, I was taken beyond myself—a leap of consciousness, if you will—and the solution came to me. I was shown, in a way I could understand things beyond my own understanding, how all the little pieces were connected—and more importantly— why at times they seemed disconnected.”

“How do you describe this leap you speak of?” Trisha asked directly.

“Let it be whatever it is to you,” Elmbert said and paused.

Trisha saw his face soften. She strained to listen as his voice

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dropped into a whisper. “For me it is to stand in humbled awe before the beauty of the mystery,” Elmbert said, spreading his branches wide. “If we are a stranger to this emotion, we are as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and most radiant beauty which our full faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms. This knowledge, this feeling is at the center of US. Our task, then, must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature which is a reflection of US’s beauty.”

“And, this is happiness for you?” Trisha asked.

“Relativityly speaking,” Elmbert said, “It is.”

“And, yet I’m hearing it said differently in other places.”

“Sometimes the same thing needs to be said in different ways. I say to-mA-to. You say to-Mah-to. Say ‘hi’ to Mather,” Elmbert said and returned humbly to his passion.

Trisha turned and stood mesmerized by the beautiful nothingness of the measly tree with the sweetest fruit and treasures within its trunk. And Trisha saw that to all the creatures of the forest that yearned for them, the treasures were freely given upon request. The only chore was in the asking.

“May I partake of your treasure?” Trisha asked the scraggly old tree.

When the tree said she could, Trisha bowed toward its trunk, scooped up only what she knew she needed and left the rest. Instantly the seemingly insignificant tree transformed into a dazzling sight, encompassing Trisha in an enchanted awe. ‡ When Trisha returned to Mather, she became captivated with the sparkling Stream of Goodness that curved around Him.

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“What exactly is this?” Trisha asked.

“Your chance to plunge into the mystery—an opportunity to bathe in both your own and others’ goodness. It comes from the rain, a symbol of renewal that flows into our life stream from many different directions. We do as a river does.

We move this goodness downstream to be used by others.

Failure to do so makes the stream stagnant, still, and lifeless.”

Before Mather finished his final thought, Trisha stripped down to her bra and panties and leapt into the water. She swam for hours as Mather listened to the grown giggles of a little girl gliding through clear ripples of water glimmering in the sun. For the first time in her life, Trisha relaxed and felt the true blend of calm and strength flowing through her veins.

When she dried off on Mather’s leaves, Trisha spotted the tiniest of birthmarks on her thigh she had never before noticed. It looked like a frame with many little frames within it.

Mather simply stated it was her Mark of Goodness.

“We all have one,” Mather said. “It’s our gift to the world if we are but willing to see ourselves that way.”

“It was rough going in getting to the Treasure Trove Grove,” Trisha noted.

“And for good reason,” Mather stated. “We can’t cut through the jungle to find our own truths with a dull effort.”

When she was dressed, Trisha reached into her pocket and became amazed that the treasures she obtained in the Treasure Trove Grove were but a handful of seeds, sparkling in the sun like diamonds.

“Plant and nurture them constantly within yourself,” Mather told her. “In the doing, there will be hardship and discomfort. Endure and grow beyond them into what you were meant to be.”

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13

Nothing Unnatural in Nature’s Court Ne’er of the living can the living judge—too blind the affection or too fresh the grudge.

—Anonymous

Cindy made a name for herself as one of the most prominent and innovative juvenile judges in the country. Her inspiration came shortly after law school while working as a public defender for delinquent kids. She saw them tossed into a bizarre court system more intent on putting them away than helping them find their way. The more she worked, the more she saw the system as part of the problem—a system she herself had traversed as a kid.

The wounds she felt as an abandoned child turned into a rebellion that bounced her off the apathetic walls of juvie hall for years. Caught in this trial of indifference, it flung her from one foster home to another. Finally, a kind family adopted her, but never quite knew how to help mend her wounded heart.

Two students she knew in law school also acted as a catalyst for Cindy. One was a classmate named Paula, a Native

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American woman with a brilliant mind and boundless compassion. The other, a medical student named Ken Wiagan, whom Cindy admired for his meticulous attention to detail. During their off time, the three would sit for hours discussing ethics and natural principles in law and medicine and how their ideas could be put to use in the “real world.”

Now, the “real world” was at Cindy’s disposal. She wove all her experiences into a book called The Laws of Nature. The book laid down a theme of how juvenile judges could use their sentencing power in an imaginative method that would not only be instructive to the delinquent kids, but also hold them accountable for their crimes. Step by step Cindy outlined how the courts could use nature to instruct kids in the nature of things, much the same as she had learned from Mather.

Within weeks of her book hitting the stands, the county called Cindy. Would she like to become a juvenile judge and prove her point? Cindy took the job and went to work.

The news media watched closely and within a year dubbed her “Nature’s Judge.” Cindy always gave the offender the option to pay their penance with some type of involvement with nature. It was either that or face the harsher consequences. It worked. Many kids who had stood before Cindy came back later to thank her for her guidance. Parents began clamoring to her court to seek this firm, but fair break for their kids from Nature’s Judge. ‡ Cindy startled when she first met her bailiff in juvenile court. Standing before her was Denel Nieght—the same smartass she had left behind years ago at her dead-end job before she started law school. But he wasn’t the same person. He was changed—a mild and gentle man, courteous in his affairs.

Denel had spent years in the forest with Mather. He had visited the Treasure Trove Grove, swam in the Stream of Goodness

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and received his Mark of Goodness. Then, he found another job where he could play his part with joy.

Cindy found it strange that Denel was not surprised to see her. He acted like he was expecting her. Through the ensuing months and years, Denel became Cindy’s devoted servant.

Cindy watched as he worked tirelessly keeping her cases and court in order. He even watched her kids when she had to work late. Outside his job, Cindy noticed Denel spent endless hours working with the children that were the subject of her cases. He became somewhat of a legal beagle himself, and made sure both the children and parents knew what resources were available to help the kids get back on track. Much of that included assisting them in understanding Cindy’s philosophy within the court and how her approach could help them.

Cindy was grateful for his support. But, there were things about Denel that puzzled her. He never took the credit for all the things he did. He gave the credit to Cindy. His means and salary were far less than modest. He lived in a rickety apartment, yet he seemed the happiest man in the world with no ambition to move beyond the post in which he worked. Cindy enjoyed her celebrity and success. She also knew she owed much of it to the role Denel played. For some reason, she felt uncomfortable about it and fumbled miserably during times when she sought to give him praise. Denel always put her at ease by humbly shucking it off.

Root of Justice “Case number G6: 9-10,” Denel announced as young Rusty Rootless and his lawyer entered the court.

“Why are you seeking a plea agreement?” Cindy asked. “I thought this case was a done deal with the trial date set.”

“Special circumstances,” the prosecutor said. “The driver beaten in the incident died from his injuries, so the

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charge is now homicide. Unfortunately, the only eyewitness to the event was elderly and also died. We were left without a witness.”

“So now young Mr. Rootless here is willing to testify against his friends in return for some special treatment?” Cindy ascertained out loud. She then asked if Rusty had himself been directly involved in the beating.

“No, your honor,” said the prosecutor. “And, Mr. Rootless is also willing to leave the sentencing for his part in the crime up to your discretion.”

Denel instructed Rusty to stand.

“Okay then. Here’s the deal young man,” Cindy said. “Before I will accept this agreement, I remand you back to the juvenile forestry camp. While there, this is your assignment.

I direct you to learn something and do something to convince me you not only understand the grave error you made, but also that the motive behind this renewed decency of yours in not just to save your own fanny.”

Rusty shifted from foot to foot. “How do I do that?” he asked.

“That is not my job, Mr. Rootless. It’s yours. Write something. Say something. Do something. But, make it convincing.

Failure to do so will land you in the slammer for a longer period of time than you ever want to imagine.”

Cindy banged her gavel down, decisively ending the proceeding. Rusty walked out of the courtroom, stunned. Rusty’s estranged father held out his hand to comfort his son. Rusty yanked his hand away and sent his father a stinging scowl.

Moments later, Rusty was back in a bar-windowed bus headed to the forest.

During the break before her next case, Cindy sat back to ponder her next book. She had picked Sea and the Tree as a title. She noticed how detached many kids on her docket were from their parents. The purpose of the book was to pinpoint how in nature two seemingly detached elements were con-

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nected. She got the idea while standing on a forest fire tower.

Looking down she saw the pine tips rolling in the clouds as a wave upon the ocean. It brought back her childhood when she made many offshore passages in her grandfather’s sailboat. She intended to weave stories around the similarities of what she learned from both the sea and tree. She hoped it would help parent and child understand the importance of their connections. Right now it was only in outline form. Cindy thought to herself that even if the book did not fly, she was still doing pretty well for herself. Then a confused frown quickly crossed her face as she slowly slumped back in her chair—a fly sortto-speak was wiggling in the ointment of goodness.

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14

The Ache The human problem? That little nagging secret, which when exposed bags the nagging in an instant… —Quote from Okum Spinoza, a 28 year old oak working on his doctoral thesis entitled: “Why Some People Resemble Deadwood.”

Although successful and appreciated, Cindy battled a constant aching within herself and did not know the reason why.

She shared the problem with Mather during one of her visits to the juvenile forestry camp. He quickly explained that doing well and feeling well aren’t always the same thing, and then dropped a leaflet in her pocket.

Leaflet Whipped Wendy Wendy the Spruce was born fit and fine, but went through many struggles in her growth. That aside, she had a good shape with a nice set of branches to sustain her progress. Then, a cold winter wind hit her hard. The power of the wind was

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beyond Wendy’s control—beyond her ability to protect herself. The wind slammed her limbs against one another, causing injury at every smack. The wind whipped Wendy’s branches against her trunk seemingly slapping herself to death. It forced her to beat herself with herself. She would never have done this on her own. The pain of it throbbed through her limbs. It was nature’s pain, unavoidable pain—callous, cruel, relentless pain. Wendy did not want this. She did not ask for it, but here it was and she was forced to endure it.

“No more!” she cried, but the wind did not stop until its business was done, leaving Wendy to review the wreckage.

And so she did—broken branches, frayed limbs, open wounds and all. She examined them one by one. She did not hide them.

Slowly, Wendy touched each wound and felt the pain that hurt her so she knew what must be healed. Then, all of a sudden, she accepted the force within her to treat the damage. The healing began at once.

One-by-one the wounds healed. Wendy did not diddle with the process. Month by month, nature’s natural forces nursed Wendy back to health. Certainly there were scars. As nature does, they were there to see—not a display for pitied knighthood, but a testament that life itself contains within itself the ingredients for the healing of its wounds. Wendy saw it as a gift of nature’s strongest power, and never hid her pain lest the healing power never find her wounds at all. ‡ The leaflet scared Cindy into a kind of awkwardness. To combat the anxiety Cindy tossed the story into the chilly winds of frozen memories, then quickly left the forest without a word to Mather.

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15

Doubt-Phil Weaknesses are built into nature for a reason. A limb may break, but the tree still stands.

—Treeverb

The Reverend Father Ashafee’s brooding soul wandered aimlessly within the forest night. Father Phil, as his students knew him, was a brilliant, albeit humorless theology professor. Though he taught the origins of faith, the light of his own hope had flickered out. His brain clouded what his heart knew without a diploma, and doubt was the culprit. Exhausted, he slumped his body against a tree and howled his demons to the deaf moon’s lonely sliver that dimly lighted the night.

“All my life I searched for it,” he groaned. I’ve dedicated my life to it and failed.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Mather said matter-of-factly. “Doubt sucks the light out of the brightest days—even worse on nights like this. Just what is it you’re searching for?”

“The link between all the faiths—a common character to the Gods. A lifetime of study down the tubes. I can’t discern it. It isn’t there. I’ve flunked my own class.”

“Maybe doubt has just given you an excuse to give up.”

“But if I have no evidence, what is the good of me?”

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“The good of you is not to doubt it.”

The remark buckled Phil’s knees. “But evidence,” Father Phil said. “Where’s the proof?”

“You’re willing to submit to your doubt, but not your faith. Neither has any evidence other than the life that possesses it. How’s your life going?”

Father Phil failed to answer.

“Oh, the masterpieces of lives doomed to oblivion,” Mather bemoaned. “All done in by the trembling hand of doubt which sets down the brush before the canvas is fully painted.”

“What do I do?”

“It’s less of what you do then what you don’t. Don’t do doubt. Think you’re alone with this? Many have come here to wallow in doubt’s darkness.”

“Such as?”

“All the biggies. Muhammad, for one. Gotta like a guy who sees trees in Paradise. In his 40-th year, he came to one of my ancestors. Poor man was trembling from doubt. Something big had happened to him and he was worried whether he was up to handling it. Then he steadied himself, accepted his role as a prophet and so began the first revelation from the angel Gabriel that make up the Qur’an’s first chapter. You’re a theologian. What are the first words in the book on this subject?”

“Do not doubt…,” Father Phil responded automatically.

“Bingo! Afterwards, what would you assume Muhammad’s thoughts were of this astonishing revelation?”

“Where goes the night when the day arises,” Phil quizzically whispered to himself.

“Ring any bells?” Mather responded. “You know the words, but their meaning fails you.

“But what about my answer,” Phil pleaded.

“If you’d listen, I’m giving it to you. Doubt enters when patience fades. Courage and persistence, man. No person of faith has been without it. Gandhi stopped by here all tied up

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in knots over how to oust the British rule in India. I gave him one line and he ran with it. Told him, ‘don’t raise your fists and you’ll knock ‘em dead.’ Took that advice right up to his assassination. Small price to pay for teaching the world there are higher things than force, higher even than life itself.”

“But, what about me?” Phil demanded.

“Why me!” Mather snorted. “Same question Churchill asked me. They kicked poor Winston out of Parliament and he thought his career was over. Came here boo-hooing with words from the Psalms dripping off his doubting lips. Called himself a worm, despised and scorned by men. Gave him a little pep talk and Winston ended up kicking a little evil butt.

When it was all over, Winston came back with a line of his own: ‘Men are worms, but I do believe I’m a glow worm.’ A little too cocky for me, but Winston got the job done. That’s what counts. Then, right after he got the job done, they kicked him out of office again. Undaunted ol’ Winston got back to painting. You know what he painted?”

“Landscapes,” Phil said.

“Landscapes of trees,” Mather corrected. “Got a ring of justice to it, doesn’t it?”

“But, my job isn’t done,” Phil protested. “What do I do?”

“Do as others who have come before you did. Find your true riches in the Treasure Trove Grove.” Mather pointed his twig finger toward the grove. ‡ Like all others, Phil got banged up getting there. Unlike most others, he got into an argument with Gracey the moment he arrived.

“I’d like to welco— ” “Who are you?” Phil interrupted, “and what is this grove you stand before?”

Gracey explained this is where doubt shrinks, but before

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the tree could extend its welcome, Phil continued to interrupt at every turn. No matter how gracefully Gracey tried, Phil would not submit to the sole requirement to enter the grove— the invitation. Phil walked away from Gracey in disgust.

“What’s there to learn from a clump of trees,” Phil grumbled.

“Being a tree, I’m not usually into prophecy, Mather said, “though I do predict that you will find what you seek, but unless you embrace Gracey’s invitation, you will not be the source of the discovery you so desire.”

“This is stupid for a man of my training,” Phil said arrogantly.

“Then I have nothing left to give you but this,” Mather said as he pointed to a small dog at the base of his trunk. Phil picked up the dog, and with his usual lack of imagination, called him “Puppy.”

“When you understand that puppy,” Mather said, “You will have your answer.”

Incredulous, Father Phil walked away with Puppy under his arm.

“Where goes the night when the day arises?” Mather yelled. Puppy yipped twice as if to understand, and the speck of doubt that was Father Phil disappeared into the night.

A sign glowed in the darkness of this night at the base of Gracey’s trunk. Upon it was written: “Faith’s character is a doubt reduction clinic. Herein lay its pieces.”

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16

Misery Tree The Seed, The Assignment, and The Seven Days of Spring For the greater portion of his life, John Norber was at war with himself over a long forgotten war. He tortured himself with its memories. Then he stumbled across Mather and the large maple lovingly tutored John into his healing. Through this caring, John learned how he had thrown a monkey wrench into his own life. Though he had not produced the injury, he realized his liability in prolonging it. Now, John referred to all things past as “back then.”

Back then, John bought all his friends and earned all his enemies. He was cold, indifferent and mostly drunk. Back then, he touched no one and no one dared touch him. John went through three wives and four estranged children. Back then, love and pain were the same, and he numbed himself to avoid them both. John’s solution for filling the void was simple: Happiness was a matter of acquisition. John had everything—two Mercedes, more money than royalty could spend and still enough internal misery to darken the brightest sky.

But now, things were different. John learned of the true

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riches of life in the Treasure Trove Grove. He swam in the Stream of Goodness and received his Mark of Goodness.

It was a hammer. And, with this hammer, he built a cabin in the woods and a new relationship with a woman half his age. It had not been easy. They yelled at each other on many occasions, but it seemed that now both possessed the sense to calm down and work things out. Now, as John sat on a forest hill, he bathed in the relationship’s comfort of weaving youth and age. “We are good for each other,” he thought to himself.

Then, he reminisced about his first meeting with Mather.

The Seed “I sense the state of your unhappiness, John, by the look on your face,” Mather said. “We have a tree among us precisely suited to your needs.” Mather pointed one of his limbs south. “It is the willow growing deep within that hollow. Pay a visit to the Misery Tree, John. It likes company.”

When John arrived at the willow he crawled beneath its weeping limbs and found himself enveloped in darkness. John settled his back against the tree trunk.

“I feel comfortable here,” John whispered to himself.

“That’s the problem isn’t it,” said the tree.

“I can’t get close to anything without the fear of pain. I don’t know if I want relationships, but I do know I want to rid myself of the misery caused by not having them,” John said.

“Sounds like you’ve answered your own question,” the tree stated bluntly, “but given the way that misery works, maybe the story of Sid will offer some understanding.” The Misery Tree lowered two of its strongest limbs onto John’s shoulders and began giving him a deep muscle massage. It hurt at times, but John withstood it as he listened to the story.

“Sid led a secure life high upon the winds of happiness—or so he thought. He was contented that his existence was sus-

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tained through a strong connection to life. But, then one day that connection snapped and Sid fell. The fall filled Sid with fear. The fear turned to panic when Sid dropped into a deep hole and was instantly covered with darkness. For weeks, he lay motionless in the misery of this dungeon. Then bizarre occurrences developed which added to his misery. Strange, bewildering things grew beneath Sid’s body, painfully pushing his head firmly against the hard surface of his darkness.

This continued for a month until one day Sid’s head popped through the top of the hole. Sid looked around and saw he was surrounded by a hundred trees all greeting him in unison: ‘Welcome to life little sapling.’ You see, Sid was a maple seed just going through the process of finding life. Great story ain’t it, John? Sid the Seed, I call it.”

“How do I know what worked for Sid will worked for me?” John asked.

“You don’t know, John—you believe,” said the tree.

“How can you trust in that?”

“A little faith that misery isn’t your life’s destiny can help.

Might be beneficial to ask yourself how well what you’re doing now is working to alleviate your pain.”

As John departed, the tree stopped him. “One last thing.

Once you’ve worked yourself through the misery, jot down an essay on what you’ve come up with. I’d kind of like to know whether I’m doing any good here. Let’s call it reciprocity for the backrub.”

“But, where do I start?” John inquired.

“Try cable,” Misery said. Television isn’t all babble these days. Look for reruns of the classics.” ‡ John returned home and realigned his satellite dish to the classic movie channels.

He spent months combing through the movies to find a

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concept for his life. Slowly John—body, mind and soul—began reaching out to unfamiliar things. Like Sid the Seed, he felt the innate drive of pushing upward toward the light. He gained insight and the courage to suffer and endure. It brought him sorrow, but he realized sorrow was not misery. It proved that he could love, was loved, and could possibly love again without the fear of pain. Years passed within the struggle of this process and misery waned with every passing month.

Then one day, John remembered the Misery Tree’s instruction and sat down to write the assignment of his life.

Touching The Seven Days of Spring An Essay by John Norber Touching life and letting life touch us is not easy, but without it there is only misery.

Without it there is no growth. And, one cannot do it alone.

There are stories which reveal to us this magical moment of life. For me, it is a scene in the movie Gorillas in the Mist.

The movie chronicles the work of naturalist Dian Fossey as she dedicates her life to studying the mountain gorillas of central African. She struggled unsuccessfully for years to make emotional contact between herself and the animals, literally living with them on the jungle floor. She made her presence part of their daily routine. She mimicked their habits and communication and sat dangerously close to gorillas that if threatened, could tear her to shreds. And, for all those years and effort, her goal of making contact came to no avail. But, she was not into giving up.

Then one day, while lying beneath the trees among a family of gorillas, it happened. A large curious silverback named Peanuts moved close to her. Fossey extended her arm toward the beast and rested her open palm face up on the ground.

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When she did, Peanuts reached out and gently touched Fossey’s hand. In this scene, the film’s director Michael Apted captures the moment with a tight-shot filling the screen of just the hands. Then, he holds the shot.

This dramatic point in the film is a freeze frame of the deepest desire within the human heart. Somehow we know life begins here. It is a moment we all wish for—a time of risk and trust where two lives reach out past all the differences and touch. It is a moment like no other—so mystical words cannot describe it. Yet we seek it out because the life within us seeks it out to live. Our deepest desire is that we touch the world this way. Our hope is the world reaches out to do the same.

Our dream is there is an offering of this experience in every moment of our lives.

As it was for Fossey, so it is for me. I choose to live. And I find it wonderfully obvious that both of us discovered this moment beneath a tree. Through its natural gift of living, the tree has taught for ages this moment when life is born. It is not alarmed that many of us have not listened, for it repeats the lesson every season through the first seven days of spring.

As he finished writing, John decided his story was pretty much like everybody else’s story and continued to write accordingly.

First Day of Spring Sometimes we wish each day could be the first day of spring. Somehow, we forget that each day is. That is why we walk among the trees—to remember it. On the first day of spring we dress too warmly out of habit. But the tree knows when the warm wind comes and the bitter chill is gone. It relaxes as a light, warm breeze grazes a limb and does not bite— then quivers in enjoyment at the first touch of spring.

For the tree, spring’s first day is built on trust in what it

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knows. It knows it can release the stockpile of water it drew into itself at fall. As the moisture oozes out, its hardened winter bark is softened. This releasing is the tree draining itself of worry that it will no longer be replenished—a testament to trust.

We observe as the clouds move in and the tree stands with extended limbs. Then the first droplets of the season fall on outstretched hands. We stop our walk and watch how this touching trust in life is so naturally replenished as spring begins anew.

Second Day of Spring The severe winter caused the tree some painful wounds.

The bitter winds rubbed the tree raw as it stood barren in the cold. But now, in a blinking of an eye, the tree has changed by tending to its wounds. Water-soaked buds expand four times their size. A bird flutters from branch to branch.

“That would be a nice place for a nest,” the tree says. The bird considers it and the tree lets him. Neither would have done this a week ago.

How is it, we wonder, that winter is gone so quickly? How does the tree know, in just one day, rain will fall and growth will come without either worry or alarm? We want to know.

Third Day of Spring A torrential rain blankets the trees on the third day of spring. A thousand swollen rivers flood the crevices between the bark and rush wildly downward to the tree roots.

As the sun rises, the rain lets up and the tree stands showered, sopped and clean. We notice the tree is replenished threefold from what it had given up only a few short days ago.

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Standing there we do not see, but some way feel the tree reach out to the elements that surrounds it. Slowly, it pushes roots more deeply into soil. Quietly, it absorbs the sustenance of the soil mixed with rain. We sense the strength in this union of exchange.

This is a commitment made to living three days into spring.

The tree rediscovers its duty to itself and those around it. Relationships are renewed. The wind and rain and soil hold a tranquil celebration. They know the honor in the part they play within the living of the tree. And through this thought, the tree is granted growth within a gentle frame of change.

Together with the trees, we are contented to know that all we need to live we have now within a family that surrounds us.

Fourth Day of Spring John thought back to spring seasons past, and recalled in the thinking how one becomes part of those seasons once again.

Trisha rises before the sun. Tears flow through whispered prayers as she kneels beside her bed. Comfort she solicits for discontentment in her life. She seeks softness within the framework of her art. But, her brush strokes are so frenzied it is lost within the rush. These problems pressing down on her, and bundled up from chill, Trisha escapes the warmth of cabin to walk among the trees.

How to capture quiet is the mission of her walk. She feels a lovely shiver as the dawn breaks through the trees. The feeling is fed by streaks of pink escaping through the clouds, then glancing through the twigs in a colored dance of sorts. The moment fills her eyes. Her heart is touched as well. Slowly she extends her arms and embraces the tree as friend. The calming she is seeking flows gently from the tree and with it comes a peaceful message at its end: “Both tree and man are graced,” it says, “with a fine and

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fragile calm. It comes to us through the vehicle of choice.

When set to the decision, only then the calming comes. Meaning stems from choosing what our colors are and also what they mean. Remember this if it is all you take away: we paint life from the inside out. A harshness on the canvas comes not from the subject, but the heart that directs the brush. Soften the heart and so the subject yields.”

Deep in thought Trisha slowly returns to the canvas in her home. On it in a peaceful shade of pink she calmly paints a child’s gentle hand portraying spring for her had come.

Fifth Day of Spring The evening winds howl a haunting growl through a dream-filled night. But, as John wakes in early morning he is able to recall only a single segment of his dream—a voice stating, “A final link completes the chain.” He mulls the thought as he exits his cabin door into the rising sun. John pins his jacket collar beneath his chin to ward off the crisp air. A squirrel scampers across his path. Head down and deep in thought, John walks amid the trees. They had taught him many things, but never had he shared a single thought.

Suddenly, John is startled. As his head jerks up, John’s collar pops out from beneath his chin slapping his chin with a sting. Standing before him is Trisha hugging a tree. Nervously, Trisha wiggles away from the tree. John quickly searches his mind for something to ease her embarrassment. “Squirrels” is the only thought he has.

“They are fascinating creatures,” John says with a stutter.

“What?” Trisha asks.

“The squirrels,” John says. “I have stood by a tree for hours like you were doing just to catch their antics among the limbs.”

Relieved from having been caught in the act, Trisha ap-

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proaches John and the two embrace. Soon, both are walking together beneath the trees. John points upward toward a limb. He describes his thoughts about it with a story from his past. Patiently, Trisha listens, and then provides her own description. The hours pass in sharing what the trees had taught them both. They detail all their differences. They affirm one another’s insights. When the time comes to leave, John makes an observation.

“You know,” he says, “unless I’m mistaken, I’d swear I caught you hugging a tree.”

“I’d describe it more as a squeeze,” Trisha says as the moment finds them laughing and promising to walk together again beneath the trees of spring.

Sixth Day of Spring With small brush and delicate intentions, Trisha sits before her easel and begins painting a large landscape of trees in the quietness of night. Within moments, she is frustrated by her harshness. She drops her brush, tosses her canvas on the floor, and curses. At this exact moment of torment, she remembers an eloquent thought John shared with her while pointing out a tree limb.

“One moment on a walk last winter,” he said, “a wisp of snow blew off a branch and streamed down like a trail of dust hurled off a canyon ledge. It was unanticipated, yet a magnificent sight of how beautifully nature subtly changes itself.

I wondered why I was there at that exact moment to see it.”

Trisha remembers John pausing to look at her before he went on. “Maybe it was to share with you,” John said innocently. “I realized every day provides the chance to witness the changing of creation not only of what surrounds us but of what’s within us. Maybe it sounds crazy, but telling you this is important to me. I understand now, sharing it with someone is the touch of

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life—both the miracle and mystery.”

For many moments Trisha savors the gentle statement.

She slowly repeats the phrase in a soft whisper: “The touch of life.” Trisha finds herself on her hands and knees searching the surface of the floor. When she finds the delicate brush she discarded, she places a large fresh canvas on her easel and begins again.

A memory nags at John as he sits before the fireplace.

While on a walk, his first wife is trying to clasp his hand. He flinches and jerks his hand away. He remembers the hurt look on her face. The look is a bookmark in John’s life. He has turned many pages in his life, but never moved beyond this troubled passage.

It has taken years to let this honesty trouble him. Now he allows the sadness to touch his heart. As he leans forward, a book falls from his chest to the floor. Beside it, John crumples to his knees. Then the first droplets of many seasons of pain begin to flow, softening the outstretched hands in which they fall.

Late in the night, Trisha’s tiny paintbrush is making little progress on the large canvas.

Exasperated, she once again slams her canvas on the floor.

But, this time she keeps the tiny paintbrush in her hands and stares at it for the longest time. Then she remembers the statement Elmbert Pinestein told her. “It’s the little things I did that counted; the little things were nothing more than a process of getting myself into a position to be made aware of something greater.”

It made Trisha think. Beauty is painted with single strokes—stroke by stroke. Dreams can be captured on a single frame and that frame does not have to be the size of the Sistine Chapel. It was then that Trisha realized it was not her dreams that were too large, just the canvases on which she painted them. Quickly, Trisha places a tiny canvas on her easel, nudges her nose close to its surface and begins to paint again.

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Just before dawn Trisha relaxes and sits back from her easel. Before her on the small canvas is one large but delicate purple-veined leaf dangling from a single branch. The two objects fill the frame. Trisha smiles as she glances at the point where the leaf stem meets the branch. Intricate strokes force the eyes to feel its detail. She purposely enlarged this juncture to make it the focus of her canvas. All lines lead to this point and she has taken time and care to make it so. At this connection, brilliant colors flow back and forth from stem to branch through firm but threadlike strands which bridge the two in union.

Gazing at her work in silence, Trisha thinks how fragile life is where two things meet. She titles her work The Meeting Place and feels its importance within the framework of her dreams.

It is cold as John and Trisha walk together before the sun rises on the sixth day of spring. Both smile, knowing the chill will be gone when the sun is up. Spring is here and both are confident this is so. Slowly and delicately, like the tip of a small brush touching a canvas, Trisha slides her right palm into John’s left hand. John accepts it with a warm and gentle squeeze.

“I have a gift for you,” Trisha says.

When John says he thinks she has already given it to him, Trisha smiles and they continue their walk through the trees.

Seventh Day of Spring Throughout the morning on the seventh day of spring, both John and Trisha revel in the richness of having touched one another’s lives. John calls his children and delights in their laughter. He is unable to contact one and it bothers him. Trisha dances through the cabin while watering her plants, greeting each with a happy song. When evening comes, Trisha approaches John with a thinly wrapped parcel tucked beneath her arm.

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“This is the gift,” Trisha says. “I’ve made one small change in it,” she adds as John unwraps the gift before the fireplace.

While sitting on the floor, John studies the painting as Trisha steadies the frame between her upper arms and stretches out her hands for John to hold. John’s eyes focus on the fragile place where the stem and branch join. At that point, John notices the soft imprint of a child’s hand reaching up in an effort to join the connection with a gentle touch.

“The final link that completes a chain,” he whispers.

Trisha beams, knowing John has understood. She does not ask him if he likes it. She feels the answer flowing through his hands. ‡ It’s important to know when we are doing the best we can do. —Treeverb A week later, John found himself beneath Mather in a troubled mood. He was still unable to reconnect with one of his kids.

“He’s cold to me,” John grumbled. “I feel I have a warm fire burning in my cabin, but he won’t come close enough to sit next to it with me.”

Mather graced the problem with a brief reply.

“Just because you found the meaning to your life does not mean you control the timetable of how it will come about for him. Your outstretched hand is constantly there. That’s your job. Take pleasure in your offering.” ‡ When John finished his assignment, he read it back out loud. The message rattled through cabin roofs and rode the

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waves within the wind. It traveled far and wide until it reached a miserable old willow in the south hollow of the forest, who upon hearing it began flapping its limbs in glee. ‡ “I have an idea concerning your art and our lives,” John said to Trisha after the reading. Trisha loved it, feeling as though John had somehow pulled the idea out from her own heart. Together the two began devising an innovative, yet simple plan that would shake the art world to its roots.

“I don’t think anyone really does anything alone,” Trisha stated with a smile as they pieced the concept together.

“Nobody,” John said.

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17

Missing Meaning’s Mark x2 Oaks until unless years.

Then

do not produce their first acorns the age of fifty. That’s okay you’re not expecting to live 200 —Quote from “Life’s A Beech & You Die” by Firdrich Neitstree

Though bereft of faith, Father Phil still remembered the words associated with it and spoke them as best he could to the glazed-eyed juveniles in the forestry camp’s open dorm room.

“I don’t know if you will accept the possibility there may be a positive in the negative situation in which you find yourself here.”

Rusty rolled his eyes back at the comment and continued to whittle down a window frame near his bunk.

“People and trees are not so different,” Father Phil began.

“We each need space, time and solitude to grow. Allelopathy is a chemical process that trees possess to make sure they have room to grow. Take pine trees for instance. Their needles

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decompose on the ground and create an acid within the soil around the tree. The acidic soil keeps unwanted plants from imposing on the tree’s space—in other words it has a type of shield protecting its needed nutrients. People need this same solitude and space to grow. Although we approach it differently than a tree, the necessity for having it is very much the same.

Father Phil mechanically told the boys of a Hindu farmer who wanted to plant a tree to shade his cattle from the burning sun. But, each time he planted a sapling, the cattle trampled it down. He did this three times with the same results. “Finally,” Phil said, “the farmer built a fence around the sapling and within two years the sapling had grown enough to survive on its own without the fence and shortly thereafter provided much-needed shade for the cattle.”

Despite his insipid dullness to inspire, Father Phil made the point. “Every life form requires its time and space to grow.

Maybe you haven’t been granted that time and space and this is your chance to acquire it. Use it wisely, if you can.”

Father Phil was oblivious that the response from the fenced-in audience was as dull as his delivery of the subject matter. He ended by tediously handing out copies of the lecture he had just delivered.

Blank faces stared back at Phil as he gave the essays to those in front to distribute. When the essay reached Rusty he crumpled it in his hand and continued his whittling as Father Phil turned and walked out the door under a cloud of drudgery from a job not joyfully done.

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18

Education of Rusty Rootless Day One of Twelve Tree-table Illness No one ever really gets lost in a forest. They just suffer temporary insani-tree concerning which direction is the right path out. —Treeverb

Lightning cracked as Rusty crawled into the night through the jimmied window near his bunk. When he grabbed a ladder on the way out, the Ringmaster noticed and guided the boy to a Chinese fig stump and placed Rusty’s finger on very specific rings.

Oak Stump #ICH-36 Ring# 5: In a forest, there is not always a path to where you are going.

Ring# 20: In a forest, if you find yourself in the thickets, it is you who got yourself there.

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Ring# 52: In a forest, where you go depends on what you’re after.

Rusty thought he knew what he was after. He neglected the remarks and within moments stood on his ladder beneath Mather’s limbs with a rope.

“What is this quiet desperation?” Mather asked.

“The end of the world.” Rusty shot back.

“Mankind’s success rate at predicting that is zero percent,” Mather stated. “Given that, maybe I can be of assistance.”

“Why would you help me after what I did to you?”

“Within the roar of the lion, I hear the sound of a wounded heart. The better question is: Why would I not? You’re at the end of your rope and once again it’s over my limb. I’m tired of being a lynching tree.” Mather talked Rusty into climbing up to sit on one of his branches. “I believe I offer you a vision of yourself through me as a sturdy tree standing upon its own roots among a fellowship of trees.”

“What’s that?” Rusty asked.

“The problem. Can you trust me to help you with this?”

Mather questioned.

“Are there any alternatives?”

“Obviously none of the ones you’ve been using so far.

There’s a reason trees don’t grow on railroad tracks.”

“It’s my parents fault,” Rusty shouted. “They didn’t have any plans for me.”

“Evidently, you’ve lived up to their expectations,” Mather stated bluntly.

“But, it wasn’t right, what they did to me.”

“No it wasn’t,” Mather stated warmly, “but what power do you possess to change what they or anybody else for that matter either thinks, thought or did to you.”

“None,” Rusty stammered.

“Well, then. Who does that leave for you to change?” Mather let the question linger in the air.

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“What do you want!” Rusty screamed in frustration.

Undisturbed, Mather thought for a moment. “Well, to answer you truthfully, I want to live happily and die happy that I lived. I’m not in charge of much, but I’m in charge of that.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Rusty snipped. “What help can you possibly give me?”

“The type of help that does away with the need for itself.

I’m the wrong direction to look in if you’re looking for perfect. That doesn’t mean I can’t help.”

“At what cost to me?” Rusty asked.

“No tree accepts anything unless it is freely given.”

“Then what is this help you speak of?” Rusty asked in a more receptive manner.

“I have a light to shine on you, but realize it is only a reflection.” Then, Mather spoke softly of life to Rusty for the longest time. He explained the upcoming experience as a better way of ending things—“better,” as Mather put it, “than Tarzan tricks with your neck dangling from my limbs.”

Rusty quietly agreed, slid to the ground, and walked to the barracks. As he did, Mather dropped a leaflet in his pocket.

Leaflet Thrown a Curve A camper in the forest tied a rope around the tip of a sapling oak. He then bent the tree over, tied it to a stake and threw his canvass over it to act as a tent. When he left, he took his canvas, but left the sapling tied head to the ground. Five years later the tree broke loose from the rope, but the bend remained. Twenty years later a man built his house near the spot and with his son noticed the strange tree.

“That’s the oddest looking tree I’ve ever seen,” said the son. “It looks like the St. Louis Arch. Pretty goofy for a tree.”

“It’s unusual,” the father said, “but only because we do

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not know the circumstances under which it grew. If we did, it might merit a standing ovation.”

“But look at it,” the boy insisted. “There’s hardly any branches except that one as big as its trunk shooting straight up from the top of its curve. It looks like a bent over old man with a two-by-four growing out of its tailbone.”

“I’ve never seen another tree like it,” said the father.

“Whatever happened, the tree was bound and determined to be a tree no matter what. I can only imagine the grit it took for it to do so.”

“Is this one of your stories on life?” asked the son.

“Not mine,” the father said. “The tree’s.”

Rusty Racooned You are neither greater nor lesser than anything else, but the same in the eyes of US. —Bhagavad-Tree-Ta (Branch 3) After an uneasy sleep, Rusty trudged angrily down the path and approached Mather with all the false bravado of an ant attacking a rhino.

“There is nothing a bag of bark like you can do for me,” Rusty shouted as he waved his fists at the stately maple.

“Then why are you here?” Mather asked as two baby raccoons with white stripes on their right shoulders emerged from the thickets. They looked lost and forlorn and shivered from the morning chill as they huddled together at the base of Mather’s trunk. The sight of them gripped Rusty’s heart in a vice. The pain of it knocked him to his knees. Tears flowed as he rolled up in a ball of hurt. He had done to these innocent animals what the world had done to him. For the first time, Rusty felt his wounds.

“What’s wrong?” Mather asked.

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“I feel like I’m going to die.”

“Well, you are—someday, but not just now because of this.

Don’t fret the tears. US would never allow hurt without granting us a mechanism to release the pain of it,” Mather noted.

“Actually, trees encourage weeping. We don’t build them up.

See the Sap? We weep when needed. What’s behind this hurt of yours?” Mather asked cautiously.

“I don’t know,” Rusty muttered.

“What a beautiful answer,” Mather mused. “It precedes all learning, yet I hear it so infrequently.”

Honest-Tree “‘Why me?’ Words with which a tree doesn’t fiddle.

‘What is?’ Now those are words on which a tree branches out.”

Rusty trudged through the forest for hours before the path turned into a valley made by two large hills. Mather suggested a trip to the Honest-Tree might help, and then pointed to a path that led to him.

“How will I know when I get there?” Rusty asked.

“You will recognize it by the mere fact that it seems so unfamiliar.”

Halfway through the valley a massive tree blocked Rusty’s path. There was no way over it and no way around it. Suddenly, Rusty knew what he didn’t know.

“You’re the Honest-tree, aren’t you,” he said.

“Yes, Honest-tree will do. Real-It-Tree is also good.”

“And there is no way to get by you?” Rusty asked sheepishly.

“Just one,” the tree said. “That little hole at the base of my trunk. You can squeeze through it at the cost of a lie.” Rusty squished his head through the hole, viewed a thousand-foot drop to a pile of rocks, and quickly yanked his head out of the

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hole.

“If I did that, I wouldn’t exist anymore,” Rusty said.

“You did and you don’t—not the real you, anyway,” Honest-tree replied.

“What in the hell are you talking about?” Rusty demanded.

“It’s that little secret you hold—the one behind the ache.

The one you’ve never really told anybody. Embrace me, Rusty.

Expose the lie. What is your little secret? You know it.”

Rusty leaned against the tree to steady his wobbling knees.

“That I’m no good,” he muttered.

“There it is in all its splendor,” Hones-tree said. The lie behind the secret of hurt and shame. It’s only true if you think it is. My request is that you visit yourself and your experiences again without the lie.”

The statement stunned Rusty. Exhausted, he lay beneath Honest-Tree’s limbs and a leaflet dropped on his chest.

Leaflet Making Sense Disgusted with the time it took to study his lessons concerning proper placement of leaves, a sapling told his teacher tree it all seemed a waste of time. His teacher tutored him with a story: “There once was a middle-aged farmer who planted fragrant trees on both sides of his long driveway all the way to his mailbox. Later in life the farmer lost his eyesight in an accident, yet he was still capable each day of walking to his mailbox and back alone, so his wife could read his mail to him.

He did so by keeping the smell of the fragrant trees on the right and left of himself.”

“I don’t get what the story means,” said the sapling.”

“It’s about understanding that someday we may have to

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rely on the seeds we planted,” the teacher said.” “It’s about finding our way home when we have lost our senses.” ‡ “You may discover you’re the one who thinks the worst of you,” Honest-Tree noted when Rusty awoke.

“You’ve grilled me,” Rusty said harshly. “What’s the truth of you?”

“It’s relatively simple,” Honest-Tree said. “As a product of an ever-expanding US, the truth of me transforms itself through every day of every year.”

“That’s a cop-out,” Rusty said.

Tired of the boy’s obstinacy, Honest-Tree dropped another leaflet on Rusty to prove his point.

Leaflet Changing Seeds of Truth A small seed hit the ground with a plunk and thought the earth was hard. That was true. Then it rained and the seed said the ground was soft. Also true. The seed thought the ground was difficult and harsh as it worked its stem to the surface.

Then the seed noticed the earth was kind for giving it the nutrients to pop its head above the ground. Both were true. Then it felt the sun was hot, and then it wasn’t. True. True. In its youth, the seed felt wobbly. It was. As it grew older it did not feel so wobbly. It wasn’t. All the seeds different truths were true at their time, but changed. As a creation, its truth is always changing. Always growing. Its truth is only as good as the last time it was tested. ‡

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“You see, Rusty,” Honest-tree said, “I am always creating new truths about myself. That’s the truth of me.”

Rusty stood up, moved back and stood in awe as he examined the massive tree. There were peaches on most limbs, but interspersed between them were apples, pears, plums and many other fruits.

“Just what kind of tree are you?” Rusty asked.

“I’m a Peach. As for the mixed fruit, they are people’s attempt to graft many other things on me. It’s not a burden, for I know the truth of me.”

“Are all trees truthful?” Rusty asked inquisitively.

“All except one. People call him the boogeyman. In treedom, he’s Mara. He’s filled with confusion and deceit and the root behind your lie.”

Lucy-Fir in Treedom On his way back to Mather, Rusty sat down numerous times to practice the truth out loud. He wanted to know how bad it sounded. Feeling vulnerable and defenseless, he stopped at four confounding crossroads. Every direction seemed the wrong one to take. He darted one way and found himself in the thickets. Mara noticed his distress and quickly appeared before the boy. Just as Rusty began to speak, Mara disappeared.

“Where are you?” Rusty asked.

“Anywhere you need me to be,” Mara said reappearing behind him. “Are you lost?”

“Yes,” Rusty said honestly.

“Well, for God sakes don’t admit it,” Mara hooted. “Lying doesn’t cost you anything and can get you almost anywhere.”

“Honest-Tree said that’s not right,” Rusty pointed out.

“So you’re going to believe a Peach tree that’s got an identity problem with fruit!”

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“It got me in the slammer.” Rusty said angrily.

“You’ve just been doing sloppy work, that’s all,” Mara said. “Your problem is you can’t tell the difference between a dream and reality.”

“Then what is a dream?” Rusty asked.

“I will win the lottery.”

“And reality?”

“I will rob the lottery’s office vault,” Mara said.

“I don’t think you’re giving me the right advice,” Rusty protested.

“That’s your problem,” Mara snorted. “You’re overloaded with advice from all the root-headed treetops.”

“If you took an opinion poll of trees, most would disagree with you,” Rusty said wearily.

“You can make statistics say anything you want,” Mara countered, “except just how much the respondents lied on the questionnaire. Honest-Tree is overrated for the good it does.”

Rusty buckled from the endless onslaught. “Stop!” he yelled in exasperation.

And, that is all it took for Mara to turn tail and run, but not without a parting shot: “Looks hopeless for you son,” Mara taunted as he evaporated into the forest mist. ‡ The truth together.

hurts

and

helps. They go —Treeverb

“I met the Boogeyman,” Rusty said.

“Everybody does.” Mather responded. “Exhausting, isn’t he? The master of confusion. Nothing more than instant gratification of a hurt spirit—a dart flung into someone’s heart disguised as an agile mind. In time, the disguise wears off.”

“How do you deal with someone like that?” Rusty asked.

“All Mara wants is a fight. Give in to that, and Mara has

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what he wants.” Mather motioned Rusty closer and whispered nine short words into the boy’s ear, disclosing the secret of how Mather defeated his own Mara.

“You can’t be serious,” Rusty blurted.

Mather maintained his whisper. “You will learn, my son, that nothing else really works.”

The Nobody Tree Trees don’t need Department.

a

Lost

and Found —Treeverb

Rusty took Mather’s suggestion to visit the Treasure Trove Grove. Rusty trudged over the hills, accepted Gracey’s invitation and was captivated by the grove as he watched its cycle of growth. Soon, he stood before the scraggly tree with treasures in its trunk.

“Who are you?” Rusty asked.

“Nobody,” the tree responded, and Rusty asked him why?

The tree explained that during his youth he had gone a little nuts and this craziness reached a peak during the period he was trying to be somebody. He said it subsided significantly when he realized it was better to be Nobody, and disappeared completely when he accepted himself as everybody.

“Well, then why Nobody?” Rusty pressed.

“It makes me more approachable,” Nobody said. “I don’t interfere with what people desire. Those that end up here do so because they want to be here. And when they do they will see me as no different than themselves—no different than anybody. And, besides,” Nobody added in the deepest tone of softness, “I am but an image in your own mind.”

Instantly, Nobody transformed into a perfectly balanced White Pine before Rusty’s eyes, glowing with beauty beyond description. During their conversation Nobody’s image

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changed back and forth depending upon what thoughts Rusty was thinking of Nobody. Rusty asked about it. Nobody explained it was nothing more than people’s own amazement over what small changes in attitude can do. Suddenly, Rusty’s eyes darted to the treasure seeds sparkling in Nobody’s trunk.

“You think you’ve lost something?” Nobody asked.

“Yes, myself,” Rusty replied. “Or so Honest-tree says.”

“Ah, the lie,” Nobody moaned. “These are the seeds of yourself,” Nobody said handing a leaf full of glittering seeds to Rusty. “You thought somebody took them from you. That’s not possible.”

Rusty felt woozy while gazing down upon the seeds within his hands. “I’m not sure I know what to do with them,” he said pensively.

“You nurture them. From that grows your hope,” Nobody said.

“I think I feel the hope,” Rusty replied as he began his walk back to Mather.

“You are the hope,” Nobody whispered to himself as Rusty disappeared behind the crest of a hill.

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19

Education of Rusty Rootless Days Two and Three

“Who is US According to Whom” In the natural course of things, trees create their own roots and imbed them in their source. No tree ever felt closer to its Source by trying to distance another tree from its Source. Different trees flourish in different soils.

—Treeverb

Roots of Support: Being an honest and balanced tree, Mather knows what he knows, but more importantly, knows what he doesn’t know.

That being so, it is fitting when faced with something beyond his experience, Mather defers to the following roots of support within treedom.

Treesaurus: A dictionary began in antiquity by trees in an effort to understand man. Its contents define the taproots of words humans use from a tree’s point of view. All the words are in alphabetical order and reside on the bark of the Treesaurus tree.

Professor Ayran: Ayran is a yakas tree that resides on a hill

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called The Skull. Ayran has spent a life time studying differences and similarities among trees. Mather gave Aryan the nickname “Saint Treemas” because he’s the forest’s resident treeologian.

Sigmund Fir-oyd: Trees by their nature do not automatically understand man. Man probably doesn’t either. Sigmund is an expert on human behavior. All his study has made him a lovable, albeit a cantankerous tree—much the same as humans. ‡ Mara haunted Rusty’s dreams throughout the night. The next day, when Rusty asked Mather about this depravity, Mather—a bit stumped—said, “Check the Treesaurus.”

Rusty slid his finger down the Treesaurus bark until he reached the word for which he was looking.

Evil: A great paradox in people’s lives. Evil is “live” spelled backwards, and apparently that’s a good deal of people’s problems. You can’t live life backwards, only forwards.

Rusty enjoyed words and the definition sparked a question.

“Do trees have a language?”

“Silence,” Mather responded. “Our life itself pretty much says all that needs to be said.”

The baby raccoons appeared from behind Mather’s trunk and again the pain of it knocked Rusty to his knees. Mather explained maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that Rusty ended up in this position each time the throngs of pain hit him.

“You’re talking about God, aren’t you,” Rusty said suspiciously.

“I’m talking about US. Whatever we are as trees, we are always an extension of our source. Our connection to it is our only true foundation.

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“I hate God,” Rusty said softly.

“US has a different viewpoint of you,” Mather said.

Rusty pulled the diamond seeds from his pocket and watched them sparkle in his hand.

“What is my source,” he wondered aloud.

“It is what it is for you,” Mather said. “What you believe and hold sacred.” Mather directed Rusty to The Skull. On the way, Rusty stopped by the Treesaurus: Skull: The location in man where burdens are both created and lifted. In between the shoulders of man sits on one branch the gentlest, most creative beauty within the universe—on the other, the most dangerous shell casing US ever created.

The Skull A tree never really thinks about growing. It just puts itself in a position to be nourished.

—Treeverb Overwhelmed with information, Rusty began taking notes in the margins of his Edgar Rice Burroughs’ books. He loved Burroughs’ Tarzan stories. A young boy lost in a jungle and befriended by the very beasts of the forest in which he was lost. The pages spoke to Rusty’s heart about his own life.

Rusty looked up from glancing at his notes when he arrived at The Skull. Fourteen steep steps stood before him. At the bottom of them a tree named Ana Tanas greeted him. Rusty looked at Ana Tanas as his feet rose to touch every step. Each time he looked back, Ana Tanas took on a different form. She transformed from a small bush to a towering oak and many things in-between as the boy stepped his way upward. Little groves clustered the top of The Skull, but near the tip were individual trees that were excluded from the groves.

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“Come here,” Rusty heard a gentle voice say from one of these isolated trees. It looked disheveled and introduced itself as Saint Treemas.

“I’m getting a little confused as to why I’m here,” Rusty said.

“Well,” St. Treemas answered, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I’d like to offer you my observations on how I screwed up and see if we have anything in common.”

The comment loosened Rusty up enough to state his uncertainty.

“I’m not so sure I believe in God,” Rusty said somberly.

“That US believes in you is good enough for now,” St. Treemas said.

“What would you say,” Rusty asked hesitantly, “is my source of life?”

“The only answer that counts to that question is yours,” St. Treemas said.

Observing Rusty was grappling with the concept, St. Treemas instructed the boy to visit Dave Rig, an oak of large stature standing in the center of The Skull grove. Before Rusty left, St. Treemas asked the boy to do one thing—to suspend his disbelief.

“What does that mean?” Rusty asked.

“To wash your mind of all you think you know so you can truly see what you see.”

“Are you my source?” Rusty asked Dave as he arrived at the oak.

“Heavens no,” Dave said. “I am but an example of one potential part. Examine me in painstaking detail from root to tip and from every possible angle. As you do, keep the word ‘source’ in mind. Then, after every point of scrutiny, ask yourself: ‘What truly is it that I see?’”

Rusty climbed into Dave Rig’s swooping outstretched arms and with cleansed heart began his detailed inspection.

Rusty placed a leaf in his hand. Then he thought “source.”

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The leaf sees it source as its stem. The stem sees its source as the twig as the twig sees the branch. The branch sees the tree stem as it source as the tree stem sees the trunk. And, the trunk sees its roots and the roots the earth as its source.

Rusty realized that each piece of the tree’s description of its source was the truth as far as it could see it. Yet, each piece was connected beyond its initial source to another and that to another, even past the earth for the earth belongs to a galaxy and on and on it went. The thought made Rusty think of the symbol of infinity carved in Mather’s Mark of Goodness.

Intrigued, Rusty climbed to the top of Dave Rig and looked down. Then he slid to the bottom and looked up.

Rusty climbed other trees at different heights all around and looked at Dave Rigs from hundreds of different angles. And from every point of observation Rusty had a new description of what Dave Rig was. Dave Rig noted Rusty’s wonderment and aimed to set him free.

“There’s a oneness in truth that goes by many names.”

Rusty pondered and wrote notes on what he saw as he walked back to the tip of The Skull. “It seems everybody’s kind of saying somewhat of the same thing a little differently.”

“And that’s the joy of it, not the sadness,” St. Treemus chuckled.

“Be a lot simpler to have one US for everybody.

“Oh, we do,” St. Treemas said. Ask anyone who the one true US is. They will say, ‘My US.’ That’s okay. If US limited Itself to chestnut trees we would have no cherries or apples.

How boring. Us wants more than nuts for us. Us speaks to a peach tree differently than he does to a fig. Because they bear different fruit, they need different nourishment. Very simple.

Different but the same.”

“And, that would make my job just exactly what?” Rusty asked.

“For us both, the world will taste the uniqueness of our fruit only once. Let us not deprive it of that.”

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“Anything else?”

“Just this: when sniffing out your source, do it just for yourself, not anybody else. That way your nose stays within the business part of US’s pie where it belongs.”

For the first time in his life, Rusty felt inspired as he skipped down The Skull. Not even Mara whispering in his ear that Rusty was a humpstick for listening to this bunch of malarkey seemed to dampen the boy’s enthusiasm. But, Rusty slowly sensed a glitch in all he had learned as he returned to Mather’s shade.

US’s Chess Game “If everything’s a preordained plan, then what’s the point in living it,” Rusty questioned Mather.

“Sigmund!” Mather yelled. Sigmund curled his scraggly root around Rusty’s torso, yanked him close, and stared into his eyes.

“Listen kid, it doesn’t take a trip to the moon to realize there is a natural order to things. Yet, in this natural order, things get screwed up from time to time. US has a plan for us, but it ain’t going to work if we’re not tied into it.

“So it’s not a done deal—the plan that is?” Rusty inquired.

“Of course not. US isn’t interested in a stacked chess game.

US needs us for the plan to work.”

“US needs us?”

“Just as we need US.” When Rusty said he understood, Sigmund flung the boy back to Mather’s trunk. ‡ “What have you learned,” Mather asked as Rusty climbed in his limbs.

“That I need to stick my roots in US to grow. How do I

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do that?”

“Find the Spirit of Goodness inside yourself. Let it speak to you. See what it says about what it is. Connect with it, and let the explanation of your source bud and grow and be what it is for you.”

“I can do that? Rusty asked.

“Why not?” Mather stated bluntly. “Everybody else has.”

“How do I get started?”

“By finding somewhere to start,” Mather said and pointed out that Rusty already had with all the notes he made in the margins of his books. “I knew Edgar back in the early 1900’s,” Mather said proudly. “Like you, he was smart, but bored out of his mind. I suggested he take in the forest’s Tree-ching tools.

It switched on his light bulb. He started writing and parlayed that into those Tarzan books. Sold millions. Maybe something in his books can ignite your source. Let me know what you come up with,” Mather stated as Rusty wandered off.

Rusty was gone for what seemed months, but was only hours in the way trees mark their time. Rusty sat quietly beneath an ash tree far away from The Skull. The wind purred through the ash’s limbs as Rusty carefully combed his notes.

When a calmness overcame him, Rusty began to write. Upon completion, Rusty stood with a smile before Mather ready to read his discovery. But, before he did, Rusty had one initial question.

“Is US male or female?” Rusty asked.

“As a Spirit of Goodness,” Mather stated, “I would guess a little of both.”

“Good,” Rusty said and began to read.

“Creating A God I Can Live With And That Can Live With Me”

by Rusty Rootless

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“In the beginning there was My God named Ashpuur.

Ashpuur was neither “he” nor “she,” so some pronouns had to be reworked. “He” and “She” became Shem. That makes Shim for “him” and “her,” and Shis for “his” and “hers.” And, “mankind” becomes mawokind. Then, Ashpuur did a wonderful thing. Shem dissolved Shimself into all things in the universe. Ashpuur no longer existed except for those pieces of Shim in all that was. Ashpuur wanted to prove Shis faith in all Shis creation so Ashpuur became a piece of all creation and became no more except what Shis creation was. Ashpuur could exist again only when all creation got together again and by so doing, recreate Shim. Ashpuur had faith this would be done, but no guarantees.

No greater act of faith has eternity ever seen. Why? Because on earth, Ashpuur gave men and women a mind of their own. Only they could decide to recreate Ashpuur. Ashpuur had Shis doubts, but Shis faith was great. And within all the pieces of Ashpuur is this faith, this hope, this challenge that Ashpuur would be again. Pretty risky business when you look at how things have gone so far. But, that’s the way it is because Ashpuur wanted it that way, and Shem’s God so Shem can do things like that.

Mawokind (“Kind” is a key word) Please understand that before all this happened Ashpuur wasn’t a naive Swiss tourist in an elf costume yodeling on a New York train platform begging to be mugged. Shem knew this venture’s uncertainty, so ahead of time he ran a pre-flight test with a couple experimental models named Tarzan and Jane. The second Shem did, they started to fight.

They caused such a ruckus that Ashpuur wondered out loud whether dividing Shimself into two sexes when Shem was

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both was a colossal blunder. Not even Tarzan and Jane liked the fighting, but incapable of stopping it themselves, they asked Ashpuur what they could do. Ashpuur’s voice took on a graceful tone: “Pretend a man and woman are sitting chained back to back on a mountain top. One cannot see the beautiful vistas and valleys the other sees. To gain understanding of half of the surroundings each cannot see, both must share with the other what they can see. By doing so, they complete each other’s world and, in a way, recreate me. The lack of willingness and patience to do this could make FTD very rich and keep attorneys in business for years.”

This and That is not Tit for Tat When Tarzan and Jane called a truce, Ashpuur decided to reward them and produced Liz and Richard to live beside them in a double-wide trailer. It sounded like a good idea. At first, the couples did nice things for each other like good neighbors do. But, it didn’t take long before they got to tossing beer cans at one another because each thought they were getting the cruddy end of the stick concerning doing nice things for one another.

“You owe me,” Tarzan yelled at Richard. “And, you can stuff your drip of a wife down the garbage disposal that I fixed for you last week.” Upon hearing this Ashpuur knew something had to be done so Shem sat the neighbors down and explained how helping others works.

“Giving of oneself eventually works itself out, but it isn’t a tit-for-tat deal.” Both couples shuffled in their chairs, pretending not to listen as Jane gave Liz the finger.

“Here’s an example,” Ashpuur said. “You do something nice for your tax attorney neighbor named Skipper. Then the steering mechanism of your pickup goes out. Suddenly, you

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think Skipper should help you fix it because Skipper owes you big time. But, you can’t find Skipper because Skipper’s hiding in shis garage. Skipper’s embarrassed. Like you, Skipper’s got the mechanical ability of an aardvark and knows shis help would just screw things up worse than they already are. Not knowing this, you get in a huff and start yelling at Skipper’s house: “Skipper’s a horse’s petootie!” Skipper then slinks out of shis garage and sheepishly admits to you the mechanical aardvark problem, but adds shem’ll call a mechanic friend named Greasy.

“Greasy comes over and fixes your steering with a nine-dollar part, saving you $800.00 in labor. Why did Greasy help you? Because Greasy’s an aardvark with finances and last year Skipper did his taxes for nothing. Greasy wanted to repay the favor. So who’s the horse’s petootie, here? Are you catching my drift? It’s not who should be helping you that counts.

It’s that somebody is helping you that matters.”

After the story the two couples hated each other for a while just on the principle of the matter. But, soon their spirits absorbed Ashpuur’s message and they were back having cookouts in each other’s yard—though Tarzan still kept track of how many hamburgers Richard and Liz were eating.

The Six Thoughts Though not entirely happy with Shis prototypes’ progress, Ashpuur took a leap of faith and dived into a total production mode for mawokind. To make things simpler, Shem cut his sermon down to six thoughts—one for each day of the week with one day to mull them over. Then Ashpuur planted them in the seeds of all of Shis creation.

Thought One: You know the moment when you must decide whether you will do what you must do or take a pass. Those

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passes litter the annals of history. The choice determines if you will live or be dead until you die.

Thought Two: It takes time to change. Don’t worry. You’ve got time. Just know change is actually made very quickly. The decision to change is the time-taker.

Thought Three: In the end, you are nothing but your life.

Once that is gone, the only remnants of you are the actions you took within it. The world as a whole does not miss you much when you’re gone. It is only better or worse off because you were here.

Thought Four: Be assured nobody who is dead appreciates the bad that they did while living.

Thought Five: Within the collective sense of all things sits the answers to all questions—the cure to all ills.

Thought Six: You are afraid to make the decision—afraid that you may fail. Do not be disturbed with your defects. If there were no imperfections, there would be no room for growth.

Without mistakes there could be no laughter on late-night TV. Ashpuur blanketed the thoughts with soil from one last reflection for mawokind to ponder: “I think it’s fairly clear you may feel this is coming from someone who is a few toes short of a foot. Even so, look at yourself and tell me, How are things going? I hope you understand that what I have told you is the path to my own re-assembly.”

The Missing Ingredient “You’ve found your source?” Mather asked rhetorically as Rusty finished the final word.

“Can this be so?” Rusty asked.

“That it is so for you, so it is,” Mather replied. Rusty explained that he felt different. Things looked different. He tapped into something deep within himself, yet something miraculous beyond himself.

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“I sense I’m connected to something good.” Rusty said.

“But, now what?”

“The same power of choice that put you in your mess will lead you out under Ashpuur’s spirit of guidance.”

As a raindrop drips off a leaf and splashes on thirsty soil, Ashpuur imbued Rusty with a short set of suggestions.

Though simple, they were not easy, and Rusty knew it. On the way back to Mather, Rusty complained to Sigmund that the instructions might be a bit too strenuous.

“People!” Sigmund shouted while flapping his branches in disgust. “If none of you were ever required to do what you didn’t want to do, I think they could just as well embalm the lot of you at birth.”

The remark’s sting landed Rusty before Mather. “Whew!”

Rusty stated while wiping his forehead. “This is tough.”

“Ya! Whew is right,” Mather said. We think rules constrain. We forget they also discipline us for useful tasks. We are always the becoming of something new. Rules help mold that becoming. We all have them and they aren’t so different.

In nature the largest tree is governed by the same rules as the amoeba. You get no where trying to exclude yourself from that reality. So how say you about the decision?”

“I’ll follow Ashpuur’s way,” Rusty said, “and do the best I can.”

“That is all Ashpuur asks of you,” Mather said, “and, I assure you that is not only good enough, but much better than you now think.”

The Assignment Until you’re dead there is always one more assignment. That’s a good thing. —Treeverb Mather had one more item for the boy to ponder. “There’s

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this little assignment you have from an acquaintance of mine called Nature’s Judge,” Mather said.

When Rusty said he did not know what to do about it, Mather pointed out the boy’s penchant for taking notes and writing, and suggested Rusty do what he did best.

“But, where and what?” Rusty asked. Mather pointed to a path that lead to the skirt of the forest.

“Every day a father and his young daughter, Sarah, walk through a park near the edge of the forest. Their chats are wonderful. Listening to them may give you the subject for your task. Let me know how it turns out.”

When Sarah and her dad strolled down the park path, Sarah stopped and asked her father about a tree limb that had grown into a power line. Rusty listened intently to the conversation. Within moments he had his subject matter. Rusty sank his roots into his writing project for the judge. When done, the boy wrote one more item, tore it out of his notepad and left. The next morning, while Mather was wondering how his young friend had made out, he noticed a piece of paper with a poem written on it sitting at the base of his trunk. It curved the stately maple’s lower limb into the shape of a grin:

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Life Is a tree Worth climbing.

It can’t be done while Reclining. We must all climb the View, as our chance to renew that the Thought of reclining is our vote for declining That Life Is A T R E E WORTH CLIMBING

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20

Untying a Knot

In treedom ‘lesson’—for tree.’

the word for ‘burden’ is ‘problem,’ ‘opportun-it—Treesaurus

“Well, young man, are you ready to convince me?” Judge Cindy Cavitts asked.

The prosecutor began to answer for Rusty but Cindy interrupted him. “I would rather have young Mr. Rootless speak for himself. What do you have for me, son?”

Rusty explained he had prepared an essay from an experience he had in the forest.

“Read it to us, please,” Cindy ordered.

A Line About Power A little girl named Sarah noticed a knot on a tree as she walked with her father on the edge of a forest. “What is that, daddy?” she asked.

“That’s where the tree received an owie,” the father replied. The girl noted it was a pretty big owie. “Seems so to us, but if you compare it to the whole tree, it’s not as big as it

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seems.”

“Why did the tree get an owie?” Sarah inquired.

The father said he did not know for sure, but had a hunch the tree’s branch grew in the wrong direction. “It could have been growing into that power-line over there,” he said. “Somebody probably cut it off to keep the whole tree safe.”

“So it got hurt so it wouldn’t really get hurt?”

The father agreed and explained that maybe this was a lesson for the tree. He said the injury reminds the tree that it has the power to grow parts of itself into some very dangerous directions.

“Is that why we get owies?” Sarah asked.

The father smiled, crouched down and softly hugged his daughter. “Sometimes sweetheart, I guess that’s how it works.” ‡ “And do you believe this story?” Cindy asked as she raised her eyebrows at Rusty’s honest awareness of his dilemma.

“Yes I do, your honor, I am the tree in the story that grew a limb in the wrong direction. I am responsible for it, learned from it and accept the consequences for doing it.”

“Then the court accepts the plea agreement,” Cindy said.

She explained it was contingent upon Rusty’s testimony required by the prosecutor in the trial against the gang members who beat the man to death in the De-Moan Drag incident. “As for your part in this tragic offense,” Cindy continued, “I sentence you to ten years at the Juvenile Forestry Camp. That’s the knot on your head for what you did. Case dismissed.”

Rusty became weak when he heard the length of the sentence. As officials escorted Rusty out of the courtroom, John Norber reached his hand out to steady his son. In his panic, Rusty engaged his father’s hand, but quickly drew it back. He was not yet ready to sit by the warm fire burning in his father’s cabin.

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21

Origins of Hate

As we have learned, it is very difficult to punch the wind in the nose.

—Treeverb

One night while pondering Ashpuur’s instructions, a word lingered in Rusty’s mind. He grabbed a flashlight and headed to the Treesaurus: Love: Another word people get backwards. Its roots are “evol,” or in Latin, “evolvere.” It means to unroll or bring to fuller development. A practice of orderly growth as a result of an inner process. Synonyms include: to change, unfold, progress. Evolvere (love) into what you can become step by step.

After reading it, Rusty shuttered and let out a loud moan.

Mara noticed: “Seems to be a lot of screaming on the road to paradise.”

“Where did hate come from?” Rusty asked Mather innocently the next morning. Mather directed the boy’s attention to smudges dotted on the forest floor. Rusty examined the area and saw a dead spruce that had been clipped off half way up its trunk. Behind the spruce stood a line of somewhat

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crooked but happy and well developed trees. Beginning with the spruce and between many of the trees down the line were black smudges on the ground—the waste of rotted trees.

“What are they?” Rusty asked.

“Hate smudges.” Mather explained one night years ago a storm arose and lightning struck the spruce. The top of it fell and started a domino effect down the line. A few of the trees were knocked down, but most were just knocked off kilter.

The hate smudges are the trees that got more interested in trying to figure out who did this to them than spending time undoing the damage that was done. When they figured it was the next tree up the line, they then put all their energy into hating that tree. Nothing else mattered, not even themselves and so they slowly crumbled into dead, dried up blotches. They knew nothing of the trees down the line that were also caught up in this. And of the lightning that started it, they were also unaware.

“And what of the trees that grew?” Rusty asked. Mather said they were the trees willing to listen to instructions of the blooming life that surrounded them. Those that hated refused to do so and because of it ended up as— “Hate smudges,” Rusty blurted out.

“Correct,” Mather stated. “And a sorry sight it is. The point is simple, but so very hard to master. Both hate and healing require energy, and the laws of nature state if you’re expending energy on one, you’re siphoning it off the other.

As for the root of the problem—the lightning. Though it does harm, it means none. That’s the problem. We think it does. We take it personally, and in the end for what? Go ahead, hate the lightning. I can assure you the lightning doesn’t care.” ‡ Mara caught up with Rusty on his way back to the barracks and bombarded him with chicanery. Caught off guard,

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Rusty nearly buckled, but then remembered the nine simple words Mather had suggested. Rusty wasn’t sure he actually believed the words he was saying, but uttered them anyway: “I love you. You suffer the same as me.” The words so confused Mara he crumbled into a black smudge on the forest floor.

“What was that all about?” Rusty asked Sigmund who was watching nearby.

Sigmund chuckled. “Those who deceive with ease are easily deceived.”

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22

Education of Rusty Rootless Days Four and Five

By its very nature, a tree makes no attempts to hide any of its parts—good or bad.

It exhibits everything it is for all to see.

Therefore, it is not defensive about how you look at it as a whole or how you inspect and interpret any of its parts. —Tree-ta-tude

“So what’s the word from Ashpuur today?” Mather asked.

“Shem wants me to fearlessly inspect myself—to expose all the good and bad in me and hold nothing back. Then tell Shim and one other person exactly what I found.”

The boy’s words so excited Mather all his limbs shook in a sweeping frenzy. “Integri-tree! Integri-tree!” Mather hooted.

“The road to reality illuminating my weaknesses and strengths.

Oh Integri-tree, you are me!”

Rusty thought Mather had gone bonkers, but Mather continued his antics. “It is like a ship, which may I add, I would like to become in my second lifetime. It speaks of the overall soundness of a sailing vessel. To truly gain this, all the good and all the flaws must be exposed, and then both handed over to the shipwright for restoration. Oh, my son! Ashpuur cannot help restore you to a healthy newness if you are unwilling

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to tell him the honest present condition of the plankings in your heart.”

“But, I’m afraid to do it,” Rusty stammered.

“So is everybody else. Therein is the wreckage of all the ships that sink. Do it all at once or do it piece by piece, but do it just the same. The more you let it all hang out, the less time the hanging takes.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Rusty muttered.

Every effort a seed makes is first to get a stable footing and then to get over itself as quickly as it can. —Treeverb

Rusty trembled before Ashpuur, but realized it was not out of fear. It was the nervousness of a student before his master—an awe sparked by the jitters of standing before a mysterious light of hope.

“Give to me all of what you are,” Ashpuur requested—“both the good and bad of it.”

Finally, Rusty told the truth. It took over a year to do it.

Rusty explained that for most of his life he truly didn’t know or care about what was the right thing for him to do. He did what he thought he had to do to survive. He did the best he could with the little that he knew. That was his good. Ashpuur nodded in graceful acceptance.

Then, all the trees of the forest heard menacing screams.

The vile words Rusty used to express his bitterness and hopeless agony curled the roots of the strongest oaks. What he had done to others and what they had done to him. It all poured out—hate, shame, and tears. Then, he was done.

“Now we know what we’re working with,” Ashpuur said.

“I love you. All of what you are I can use. Is it mine?”

“Yes.”

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“Good. I work through willing people. That’s how I get things done.”

A tree always has its head in the clouds.

But, it could not reach these heights unless its roots were first firmly imbedded in the earth because that is where all of heaven’s work gets done. —Tree-ta-tude

On a leisurely sunny day, Denel Nieght—the unassuming court bailiff—sat with Rusty dangling their toes in Brehmer Creek. In his off hours, Denel was working miracles with the boys at the juvenile forestry camp. The backbone of Denel’s approach with the boys came from his uncle, Charlie Nieght.

As a kid, Uncle Charlie lost his parents and proceeded to get himself into a heap of trouble. Father Flanagan’s Boys Town in Omaha, Nebraska came to the rescue under the guidance of the priest’s famous motto: “There are no bad boys.” Charlie took that motto, ran with it, and turned himself around. Then in time, through the firm kindness he had received, Charlie shared it with his nephew. “There are no bad boys”. During the period of his own bungling, Denel eventually figured out what his uncle’s example had been trying to teach him all those years.

Rusty enjoyed spending time with Denel. His delicate handling of the boy’s soft spots, mixed with frankness in answering questions, made Rusty feel at ease. Plus, Denel had a sense of humor.

“You told me that you pray,” Rusty stated as he turned to Denel on the creek bank. “Just what is it that you pray?”

“God, make me into just half of what I’ve bullshitted people into believing I really am,” Denel said.

Rusty laughed hysterically. Denel never swore.

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“You mean you were in trouble, too?”

“Deep doo-doo.” In a very calm tone, Denel told Rusty about his childhood. Stark details. It was brutal—even worse, Rusty thought, than what he himself had experienced. Rusty felt his heart sink. Nobody had been this trusting and honest with him before. Though at times Denel fought back tears, there was no hint of rancor in his voice…only the warm hum of a soul that had captured the truth of its own goodness.

“I rebelled,” Denel continued. “Isolated myself from others with arrogance. That way I wouldn’t have to be hurt again.

I know now people wanted to help, but I was suspicious of the motives behind their every act of kindness.”

“But, you’re not that way now,” Rusty noted. “What got you out?”

“Uncle Charlie’s love. The forest’s Tree-Ching tools helped. But, mostly just learning how to forgive.”

Rusty squirmed at the final word. “What’s the key to that?”

“I realized forgiveness wasn’t about anybody else. It was about me. I had to stop wishing that I and everybody else were what we were not. Accept the truth of it. State the truth of it.”

“What did it take to do it?” Rusty asked.

“For me: God, persistence, and an understanding of time.

I realized Michelangelo didn’t paint the Sistine Chapel in a day, but he didn’t take 15 lifetimes to do it either. He finished it. That’s me,” Denel said with a smile of finality. “How about you?”

Rusty’s gut knotted at the question. This was his chance.

For a brief moment he sat listless watching the water ripple over his quivering toes. Then he braced himself, turned to Denel, and began. There were tears here and there, but he held nothing back. Then, as with Ashpuur, he was done.

“Feels good, doesn’t it,” Denel stated. “Sort of cleansing.”

“Feels sort of naked,” Rusty noted. “Now what?”

“For me, it was to be an example of an injury healed, not

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only for my own good, but to show it is possible for those who refuse to believe it. How else would they know? How else would you know?” Rusty was silent. Denel left it there.

“Good job. We’ll talk again soon.”

Rusty noticed something strange while he took a stroll along Brehmer Creek after Denel’s farewell. He sat on a stump and jotted it down in his notebook:

Two Trees Note Two trees rooted in the steep slopes on opposite sides of Brehmer Creek’s banks. Because of this slant, they slowly grew towards each other until their main stems touched over the middle of the stream. Then together, bark to bark, they curved upward and grew to the sky. Contrasted with the “straight” surrounding trees, this natural occurrence could seem unnatural. But, how can it be unnatural for any two things that start out somewhat off center and alone to slowly grow together?

By doing so, their union created a balance permitting a steady growth for both toward the heavens.

Upon finishing the note, Rusty whispered to himself: “There is no site in the forest quite like it.”

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23

The Spark

A seed loves floating on the wind, but realizes the shop of life doesn’t open until it settles down and gets down to business.

—Treeverb

In one faith’s image, Michelangelo painted man’s nobility of hope on Rome’s Sistine Chapel’s conclave ceiling. There, near the center, is painted one frescoed panel titled The Creation of Adam. God lies on one side reaching out to Adam. Adam, on the other side, reaches out to God. Adam’s body is alive, but lifeless—breathing, but breathless. Between both figure’s reaching fingers is a space where the ember of life must be transferred. The background in which God resides is shaped exactly like a human skull. If there was a caption for Adam concerning the space between the fingers which the spark of life must bridge, it would read: “This is between God and me.” ‡ Rusty smacked his finger with a hammer and let out a yelp.

He felt embarrassment because it was the first time his father was visiting. Rusty was trying to repair a cage he had made for the orphaned raccoons. When John offered to help his son,

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Rusty quickly declined it.

“Just how did it come about that the raccoons lost their mother,” John asked as he sat on a nearby picnic table working out a project on his laptop. Though the question stiffened Rusty’s spine, he told the truth. Then he prepared for a backlash. There was none. Instead, sincere understanding flowed from a man Rusty never understood.

“It’s good to right a wrong. I’m proud of you,” John said and then paused. “I think I have some work to do in that area with you when you’re ready.” The comment hung in the air for a moment and evaporated.

“What’s this all about,” Rusty asked while looking at hundreds of squiggly lines crisscrossing one another on his father’s laptop.

John explained that in 1980 he took Trisha to Rome to see the Sistine chapel’s frescoes. When they arrived, a massive project was underway to restore the deteriorating paintings.

The restoration process used was called ASHE, which stood for Amplifying Sheet-paper, Heat Enlightened. The paper was invented so its entire surface conducted electricity and therefore could be wired to a computer program. John said the restorers devised the system to return the paintings as closely as possible to their original condition without damage.

Rusty seemed interested enough for John to continue. John described how the restorers carefully attached the paper over each fresco and then shined an ultra violet light on the paper.

When they hit the juice, the fresco’s image was simultaneously transferred onto the paper and into the computer. Once done, they could use the software to make adjustments to deformities in the painting due to cracks in the Chapel’s ceiling. From there, they made exact replicas of each fresco. On the replicas, the restorers practiced different color mixtures to get them correct before applying them to the actual painting. But, there was one glitch in the process. Once the electricity was turned on, they had exactly three minutes to remove the paper from

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the fresco before it would ignite and burn not only the paper but also the painted ceiling. Obviously, they devised a foolproof method to insure the paper’s timely removal.

“What are you doing with this?” Rusty asked poking his nose closer to the screen.

“I downloaded their software and got my hands on a good deal of the ASHE paper. When I started messing around with the program, I discovered some intriguing, though puzzling elements in it.” John explained he could still-frame many different pictures into the program, and then override it with a master picture. Once he did, the computer would then take aspects of all the other pictures to make up the image of the master picture.

Rusty became confused.

“Here, let me show you.” John hooked up a camera to the laptop. He first took numerous pictures of the trees and landscape around him, including a shot of the raccoons. Then he took a still frame of Rusty to act as the master picture.

When John punched “enter,” up came a picture of Rusty painted with the stroked images of the surrounding terrain.

His eyes were shaped from walnuts. Raccoon fur replicated his hair. Though everything was perfectly shaped to resemble Rusty, even his hands had the texture of tree bark. The process fascinated Rusty. At that moment, a current seemed to spark between father and son. Back in his mind, John was making some very hard decisions about where his prime responsibilities now needed to be.

“Trisha and I have come up with a unique use for it in her art work,” John explained haltingly. “She’s got the program and the whole idea down pat. I’m pretty sure she can handle it by herself now.”

Camp officials now regarded Rusty as somewhat trustworthy. A guard nodded a gentle “yes” when Rusty approached him with a question. Then he turned to his father. Have you ever been around the bend of Brehmer Creek?” Rusty asked.

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“No,” John said.

“Well, come with me. There are two trees there I’d like you to see.”

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24

Letting Go

Orphaned Annie and the Treasure of the Lost Leaf Ever notice people get lost in the woods, yet people who are lost go to the woods?

—Treeverb

Trisha’s career as an artist was on the fast track. People began noticing, and in a very unusual way, purchasing her work. One art critic—enthralled, but perplexed by her art— described Trisha’s unique style as an oxymoron. He characterized it as “an enigma stating a simple truth.” For most, that would make a budding artist happy, but Trisha found herself walking through the woods again searching for comfort in grave sadness. The spirit of the Ringmaster noticed and landed on her shoulder.

“May I assist you?” Ringmaster inquired.

“I’m hoping you can,” Trisha said. “John and I are splitting up and going our separate ways.”

“Diverging paths are a normal course in nature,” Ringmaster noted.

“And, so it is with us,” Trisha said. “But even though that’s true, I find myself unwilling to let go. I am panicked by my clinging. I found my way with John at my side and fear I will

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lose it when he’s gone.”

“Also quite natural,” Ringmaster said as he lead Trisha to Ash stump #146 and pointed Trisha’s finger to its 37th ring.

The narrative began at the moment of Trisha’s touch.

Orphaned Annie’s Miracle “During my 37th year I learned much about my old oak friend named Annie. She bewildered me for years. Then a wonder occurred. It has become my most requested story:” Once again, Annie finished the story of horror to her children: “And, so the little seed who ventured off all by himself was never to be heard of again,” she said with finality. And once again, the story produced its intended effect. All her seedlings shivered at the thought of being flung into a world that would leave them on their own. All except Jimmy, that is. Jimmy grew high atop Annie’s crown and dreamed of flying on the wind. It was destiny he thought, but learned early not to talk much of it.

“Foolish whims,” his mother chastised when Jimmy dreamed out loud. She’d then rattle fear into her infants’ hearts by shaking her limbs. Frightened, all the seeds would tighten grips and cling harder onto Annie’s branches—all except Jimmy who dreamed of soaring on the wind.

Annie hated the season of dispersal when her friends sent their seeds floating on a forceful breeze with glee. She ignored their gaudy ceremony for she knew the pain it brought. Later she would have to hear her friends shout encouragement to kids growing on distant hills. And then they’d turn to Annie.

“Did you see the new limb my little Jack sprouted in the west?” one would say.

“Get a load of Suzie’s sparkling leaves,” another friend

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would add.

Annie felt the sting. “It is of no concern to me,” she’d quip and turn her bark upon them all. And, then her friends would watch in sadness as Annie clenched her seeds in fear at the slightest prattle of the wind. Only when the wind had died did they see her grip let go. And down her seeds would fall in piles at her trunk. All would try to live, but none would have the chance, for all the food was taken up by Annie’s roots instead. And when all her seeds had withered and died, Annie would bow her limbs and cry.

“You’d think she’d learn,” her friends would say.

And, in the not too distant future Annie did. While Annie dozed in an August breeze, Jimmy seized his fate. He quickly snapped his stem and floated off upon the wind. Annie woke in terror seeing Jimmy swirling fast away. Jimmy’s siblings muffled Annie’s scream by applauding from the ground. Soon the daring flight had sparked a seedling spree. A thousand seeds from Annie’s crown were diving in the breeze.

“Ungrateful little wretches!” Annie yelled, but the shout was lost in yelps of glee from the seeds that broke away. Across the roads and over fields to distance hills they flew. And with them soared a happiness that Annie thought she lost.

Several years later a wise neighbor leaned gently toward his grieving friend.

“Annie,” he said, “have you ever noticed all the young trees growing on the distant hills. I thought you’d be interested in that ten-year-old oak—the one with that delightful swooping curve in its first main stem.”

“What’s it to me?” Annie snapped as she became annoyed at a young boy trying to shimmy up her trunk. When the boy got up far enough to straddle her first downward swooping limb, Annie became shocked and then excited.

“A curve in the first main stem!” she screamed—a delightful, swooping, beautiful curve.” And instantly she turned to the oak on the hill.

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“Hello mother,” a voice floated softly through the distance. “How have you been?”

“Jimmy!” Annie shrieked. “Jimmy, is that you?”

“Yes, mother,” Jimmy said. “I’ve been waiting for you to notice.”

“But-but, I didn’t know what happened to you,” Annie sputtered. “But, then I saw the swooping curve and remembered mine and—.” A shot of anger hit Annie. “Why didn’t you let me know where you were?”

“I’ve spent all my time growing so I could,” Jimmy responded calmly.

“And what of all the others?” Annie asked with a heartfelt sob. Then Mike and Samuel and Sissy leaned out from Jimmy’s shadow, and for the first time Annie felt relaxing warmth deep within her core.

“These are your children,” Jimmy said. “They love you mother, and would like to say hello.”

Suddenly, Annie jolted when another mother began screaming at the boy who sat straddling her main stem.

“Get down from there this instant,” the mother yelled in a frenzied tone. “How many times have I told you not to leave my side.” Hearing this Annie sheepishly looked toward her children. Together, they smiled back in understanding.

Over the next few months, Annie searched within and found the strength to share with her children what she had always feared to say. “I was so afraid of losing you and being alone,” she said. “But, now I know your leaving was an act of loving both me and life.”

Many years have passed since then, and through them Annie found a new meaning in her life. Her children dot the landscape now from field to grove to hill. All are stately, self-reliant oaks, which garner much respect. Now when strong winds dart and blow dispersing all the seeds, Annie’s cheer of praise is heard far above her friends: “Wheeeee…good luck,” she yells. “I love you very much.”

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‡ “There is one more story,” the Ringmaster informed Trisha. “I must tell you this story myself for the tree from which it came has no idea of the miracle created by letting go of its most prized possession. It concerns a maple that grew up on a riverbank. One year the Maple decided to devote its US-given talents into producing the most beautiful leaf it could possibly make. And, that is exactly what it did.

“Maple babied the leaf as a bud, directing the lion’s share of its water to the leaf’s stem. As the bud unraveled, Maple put all its love into the care of this leaf. Maple dug its roots deeper into the ground than it had ever done before to deliver to this leaf nothing but the best nutrients the soul of the earth could offer. And when the leaf matured, Maple had accomplished its goal. And, I must say if ever there was a more beautiful leaf, I have not seen it. There it dangled, majestic in shape and perfect in form as it framed an exquisite mixture of intermingled ornate purple veins upon its surface running stem to stern.

Picasso himself would have bowed in envy to the lines of brilliance pictured in this leaf. It was a symbol of what can be done when one digs to the bottom of the best of themselves.

“Then came the season for Maple to let go of the very thing into which it had poured the core of who it was. That was difficult, but it did. Down it floated to the ground. It took countless years for the leaf to edge its way to the nearby stream. When it did, away the current took it. A man grieving his son’s death stood on a bridge and watched the beautiful leaf trickle down the stream. When it went under the bridge the man ran to the other side to watch it flow gently out of sight. Instantly the man felt a calm come over himself as he related this experience to the brief but wonderful journey he had throughout the short life of his son. “‘It was good,’ the man whispered to himself from the warmth that filled his heart.

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“But of this goodness it created, the Maple was unaware.

The leaf continued traveling to a grassy ocean estuary. A father and his daughter, Sarah motoring in their jon-boat spotted the glorious leaf with purple veins and chased it. From grassy clump to swirling tide they puttered in pursuit. Back and forth and in an out they sped. “‘We didn’t catch it, but what a great time,’ Sarah told her father when they tied up for the day. This goodness happened also without Maple’s knowledge. The leaf caught the evening tide and rode the waves deep into the Pacific. One thousand miles east of Hawaii a humpback whale heading for its birthing grounds captured the leaf snugly beneath a barnacle on its back. Upon the whale’s arrival at its south sea island destination a rogue current overtook and beached the whale upon a reef. Tribesman from the island noticed the whale and rushed out to help. Just before they pushed the whale into deeper water, a tribesman named Hafit noticed the leaf beneath the whale’s barnacle and excitedly plucked it out. “‘OOOOOOhhhhh, Creator!’ Hafit yelled as he held the leaf to the heavens. ‘You are more magnificent than I ever dared to dream.’ You see, Hafit was in charge of handing down his peoples’ spirit through a sacred ceremony requiring a leaf. But all the islands’ leaves were gone. And, now the US’s had granted him a unique unknown leaf with lace-like purple veins. That night, Hafit entered his sacred cave high upon a cliff, and conducted the Malo Palo ceremony for the first child of a new clan. After the ceremony, Hafit sat alone on the cliff in peaceful meditation throughout the night. “‘Creator, you have rewarded my faith,’ Hafit repeated above the moonlit reefs. ‘You have answered my prayers.’

Again, Maple’s awareness was absent of this act.

“You see, Trisha,” Ringmaster said. “We may never know the goodness our love does when we let go and give it away.

But that should never stop us from letting it go. Have these stories offered insight?” Ringmaster asked.

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“Yes,” Trisha responded.

“And what words do they grant you concerning your circumstances with John?” Ringmaster asked.

Trisha cupped her hands around her mouth. “Weeeee, good luck,” she yelled. “I love you very much.”

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25

Education of Rusty Rootless Days Six and Seven

Garbage gets stuck in trees—bags, feathers and candy bar wrappers. There it hangs entangled in twigs for all to see. A tree wants to cleanse itself of this trash, but of and by itself it can’t. It must wait for the very same wind that deposited it to come again and blow it away. When it does the tree shakes and swings its limbs, thereby cooperating with the wind to dislodge this junk. With not a question about the irony of of the process the tree is thereby cleansed.

—Observation from Johnny Appleseed to a Hindu friend while wandering in a grove after bathing in the Ganges Every day for six months, John waited patiently for his son at the camp’s picnic table. Rusty never showed. Hate smudges against his father returned with a vengeance. Rusty became so sensitive to his own defects he crumbled like a cracker at the slightest poke. Impatient with his own improvement, Rusty nodded aimlessly into the wild confusion of violent mood

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swings. One moment, every word from a kid at camp became provocation for punishment.

“How ya doin’, Rusty?”

“Up yours!” The next moment, Rusty cornered the same kid and tried to shove his own version of Ashpuur’s code down his throat. Sigmund noticed and intervened.

“If you’re having trouble with everybody and everything, everybody and everything are not your problem. Who could it possibly be, then? Let people not be perfect and neither will you need to be. Both will be so anyway despite your objection.”

“Cram it,” Rusty shouted and flip-flopped into a do-gooder on steroids. He doubled up on everything the guards asked him to do and then asked for more. He did the same for his friends to the point they began playing him for a sucker. The more good he tired to do, the more his resentments burned until finally in complete exhaustion he fell down at Mather’s trunk.

“Help,” Rusty whimpered.

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re living in the Land of Chaos and I’m not a citizen there.” Mather told Rusty to pull back one of his limbs as tight as he could and then let it go. The limb sprang out. On its snap back, the limb cracked Rusty’s chin, knocking him on his rear end.

“What’s the matter with you,” Rusty snorted.

“Two things as it pertains to you,” Mather said without remorse.

“What you’re enduring now is somehow perceived by you as punishment. That’s a word man invented. In Treedom, it’s but a simple law of nature stating for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Might give it some thought, given what you’ve been doing.”

“And the second thing?”

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“I cannot prevent the reaction you just experienced. It is my true nature. What I most admire about humans is that you can go beyond this nature—rise above it. That is, if you’re willing to incorporate a little stabil-it-tree in your life.”

“How do I get that?” Rusty asked.

“Slowly,” Mather stated and pointed the boy in the direction of Brehmer Creek.

On the way Rusty became dumbfounded by an unusual tree growing beside his pathway to the creek. An inscribed plaque stood in front of the sprawling tree:

Heaven’s Tree Before you stands Ailanthus altissima—a Chinese sumac commonly called the “Tree-of-Heaven.” It does not root itself easily, but once established it grows quickly—sometimes taking over entire sites. Its wood is soft, but its grain coarse and strong. It reaches heights of over 80-feet. Ascending the Treeof-Heaven is useful, but not easy. It’s a hard climb. If it wasn’t, everyone would climb it. Everybody’s capable of it, but not always willing.

Equi-limb-rium Rusty sat down just inside the camp’s fence where Brehmer Creek made a large roundabout swing outside the barrier before meandering back beneath the fence. The boy recognized Sarah outside the fence trying to balance herself across a thin oak that had tipped over and spanned the looping stream from bank to bank. Sarah looked older now and her father was not with her. Rusty chuckled as he watched Sarah wobble and fall into the creek numerous times. But she kept getting back on the log. Sometimes, she made progress. Other times, she was

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back in the creek. But wherever she was, her determination to balance herself across the creek was unshakable.

Slowly, Rusty realized that in order for Sarah to move forward, she had to pick up one foot and put it in front of the other. It was always at this exact point she became wobbly— right when her one foot was alone on the log and the other foot up in the air moving forward. Despite her setbacks, Sarah persisted until the shakiness of her movements turned into a confident steadiness. Then, in a flash, she dashed across the log from bank to bank and applauded herself with a gleeful giggle. Slowly, Rusty grasped the point of Sarah’s demonstration.

Being Used When I look back on it, what I thought was spiraling out of control was many times the beginning of things spiraling back to a point of origin, which is where they needed to be in the first place. —Tree-ta-tude from a wandering vine in Treedom.

“How’s your equi-limb-rium?” Mather asked.

“Shaky at best,” Rusty stammered. “I’m still pissed at my father about the way I was treated—the way I was used. I try to control it but it boils over into a rage that screws up everything I do.”

“Always the calm student be,” Mather instructed. “We all use one another. I use the earth. The earth uses me. ‘Used’ is but a root word of ‘useful.’ Used properly, it’s a necessary exchange.”

“Define properly.”

“In my nature, it’s a given. For you, it’s a decision over

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exactly whom you wish to serve— yourself or something bigger?”

“Do I always have to be starting over?” Rusty screamed as his rage boiled to the surface. “Why do you keep coming back and keep coming back to the same thing in different ways over and over again?”

“Because the obvious is not obvious to you,” Mather said bluntly as he softly swirled a limb around the boy’s shoulder and hugged him to his bark. “All I ask you to consider is to navigate yourself back into agreement with the moral compass you yourself chose to guide you. Return back to the root of your problem—the origin of your hurt and the source that began its healing. What was the latter one?”

“Ashpuur?”

“Ashpuur, exactly. It does you no good to expose your garbage if you’re unwilling to dump it. Are you willing?”

“Yes, but I don’t seem to have the power to dump it myself.”

“Then who does?” Mather asked.

Rusty became mute. Silence so often is such a poignant answer.

Getting Unscrewed 1. All living things make mistakes.

2. All of us are made as a piece of US’s image 3. So, give yourself and US a break.

—Main three themes behind St. Treemas’ famed book in Treedom entitled: “Way Out On a Limb/Stories of Treemendous Bloopers”

“How goes the wonder of life?” Ashpuur asked while

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Rusty rested beneath his sacred tree.

“All screwed up,” Rusty snapped, but then paused with a quizzical look. “Why is that?”

Ashpuur bent the entire top of his twigged torsos down over Rusty and answered the boy while looking at him upside down.

“Bizarre things happen with each step toward a new awareness. It’s uncomfortable only because we’re shoving off into unfamiliar territory. Much easier to sink back into old familiar ways and stay trapped within our misery, comfortable and depressing as it is.”

Rusty thought back to Sarah climbing back on the log. A wave of negativity instantly vanquished the thought.

“But, I did get screwed,” Rusty lamented.

“And there you’re stuck topsy-turvy on the Un-MerryGo-Round going nowhere. Give up your love affair with getting screwed.”

“It’s not a love affair,” Rusty protested and backhanded Ashpuur’s bark in anger.

“Then what is it? Because you got screwed once you now think you’re always on the verge of getting screwed, and your impulsive reaction to prevent it usually ends up either screwing yourself or somebody else. It’s an endless cycle until you put the screws to getting screwed.”

“But, I can’t dump the garbage without help.”

“And, I can’t help until you feel worthy enough to ask for its removal.”

“I’m asking.”

“Finally,” Ashpuur said wearily and then straightened Shimself out high into the sky and spread Shis limbs to the horizon. Rusty stood up and cowered at Ashpuur’s majesty.

“Now what?” Rusty asked.

“The truth,” Ashpuur said as Shem put a limb on each of the boy’s shoulder and looked down squarely into Rusty’s face. “You feel hurt and used by the authority that was over

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you. And, here I stand asking you to let Me use you and be your authority. Pretty simple to understand why you’re having problems with that. All I can ask is give trust one more chance, but this time point it in My direction with a bit more consistency.”

“What do you mean by ‘use me?’” Rusty asked skeptically.

“Give all of yourself to me.”

“I promise—” “—No more promises, Ashpuur interrupted. You promised me once before. I told you then and I’ll remind you again and again, I don’t require perfection. Your best is good enough. That makes allowances for a few screwups without getting yourself all screwed up.”

“So how does using me work?”

“Because I am the Spirit of Goodness within you, I will use the bad in you for the good of US and dispose of it when it no longer serves goodness’ purpose. All I ask is your willingness to have it disposed. I will do the disposing and handle the timetable of its removal.”

A lightness of freedom instantly swept over Rusty.

“You mean I can be happy with just the way I am?”

“Why not? I am. Your heart has always been good. It’s your brain that’s a little screwy. Think of it this way. Your mind is like an ocean divided into two halves. One side is open, the other closed. If you’re going to get lost drowning in it, do it on the open side. That is the only place my rescue squad can get to you.”

A Matter of Facts There are really only three facts in life— yours, mine, and everybody elses. —Famous quote from distinguished attorney in treedom, Clarence Sparrow while delv-

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ing into the jungle of monkey business during an infamous court case

Rusty and Mather catnapped peacefully side-by-side in early afternoon.

“I can’t seem to see things other than the way I see them,” Rusty said groggily as he squinted at the sun rays beaming through his eyelashes.

“When all you pay attention to is your facts, you’re missing all the rest of US,” Mather said. “Talking about your dad, aren’t you.”

“Yah. Still hurts and I don’t know why.”

“Ah, the ‘who-dun-it-story’ of the ages that begs to know who, what, where, and why it was done. People waste lifetimes rummaging their minds for their own answers when the only thing that will settle the matter is to simply ask the offender.”

The comment stiffened Rusty’s backbone into a steel girder. Here was the confrontation he feared most. His facts would have to come face to face with other facts. His rigid backbone melted into mush at the thought of it.

“Don’t do it out of hatred,” Mather added. “Do it out of an honest effort to understand. Who knows, you may learn what happened to you had very little to do with you.”

Singular-It-Tree of We A tree knows its pain is every tree’s pain.

Mawokind, we believe, is evolving to the same understanding. Who comes to this truth first is of no matter. That the point is come to is the matter itself. —Quote from Socra-tree’s “Treepublic”

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Rusty’s knees wobbled as he stood before his father at the picnic table.

“Still hate me?” John asked.

“On and off,” Rusty admitted while sitting down to steady his knees. “For most of my life I thought you were the biggest jackass that ever lived—that and the boogeyman all wrapped into one.”

“And now?” John asked.

Rusty told his father the nine short words Mather taught him in dealing with the boogeymen that haunted his mind.

“Good words, son. So, where do we go from here?”

“You’re my father and I know nothing about you—your facts, your life.”

John leaned forward and began opening the book of his life, exposing each page for review by his son. Absent parents.

The hurt and hatred. Trying to fend for himself without quite knowing how to do it. Then the war.

“Bizarre,” John stated. “Life and death chaos in a land of no rules.”

Then, his best friend was dead. A rifle crack in a far off land and all that he ever knew of love was gone. John blamed himself. What do you hold on to when the only thing you ever had to steady yourself goes poof?

“Nobody gave a damn,” John said. “And, when I got out, I aimed to prove it—endless depression and drunken brawls.”

Rusty felt tears on his cheeks. This was his story, too. Different, but the same. The chaos of no-rules Prince. The war zone of De-Moan Drag. Good Sam Ritana dead and gone. John explained how things turned around when he visited the Native American parents of his friend lost in the war. They lead him to Mather’s woods. John took it from there and found his God. “The forest taught me how fortunate I am. That’s what it was all about. To be here with you and find what I thought I had lost.”

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Ashpuur’s celestial thought finally hatched in Rusty’s mind. Its incubation period was over. “There’s war in everyone’s heart,” Rusty said softly.

“Everyone,” John answered. “Until we find a means to end it.”

Something within Rusty relaxed. A struggle within him lifted and floated away as a leaf on the wind. Then for hours, John and Rusty sat silently together in stillness. Silence so often is such a poignant answer.

Within the entirety of a single glance, a tree is one of the very few things in life where one can vividly see that many different parts are one. —Comment from an unknown but happy tree in that nearby grove. You know, that one way over there standing right beside US.

Rusty stopped by Mather on his way back to the barracks.

“What is the difference between all the Gods?” Rusty asked out of genuine curiosity.

“I don’t know,” Mather stated. “In this forest we don’t have a diagram of US, just an awe of Gracey.”

Rusty looked puzzled. “But, each seems to be trying to accomplish in different ways essentially the same thing. God has so many names. What’s the difference?”

“Among other things,” Mather observed, “maybe the pronunciation.”

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26

Trials and Treebulations Assets are errors rectified. —Comment from the first crab tree who learned it could grow apples.

Rusty tossed and turned one dark night before the morning he dreaded to face. Ashpuur noticed and wove a message around the young boy’s heart: “When they love you, they love me. Let them.” Ashpuur repeated it until the sun came up. ‡ Nearly two years passed since the gang incident on DeMoan Drag that ended the life of Ian Casder. At the time of his death, newspapers described Casder as a pillar of society. The personal stories of his good character were revived as the trial for his murder neared.

“All rise,” Denel said as Cindy entered the courtroom ready to hear case number G6: 9-10. The two defendants, Prince and another stoutly-built boy named Dan Dormage, had both been remanded to adult court. Due to her familiarity with the charges, Cindy moved up from juvenile court to hear the case. A jury trial was waived which left Cindy judge and

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jury.

With clear-cut evidence behind him, the prosecutor confidently called Artus Norber to the stand.

“State your name,” the prosecutor asked.

“Artus Norber.” Rusty winced from the sound of a name he had never used.

“And, you were known to these gang members as Rusty Rootless. Is that correct?” the prosecutor asked.

“Yes” Rusty replied.

Quickly, the prosecutor led Rusty through the events on De-Moan Drag and then asked Rusty to point out the two people in the courtroom he had seen commit the murder. Rusty first pointed to Dan Dormage. His finger twitched nervously as it landed on Prince. Rusty lowered it quickly as Prince’s glare cut through him like a cold knife. The defendants’ attorney grasped at straws for less than five minutes and rested his case. Within a half-hour, Cindy had withdrawn to her chambers and returned.

“I find both defendants guilty as charged and sentence you both to life in prison without the possibility of parole.”

Prince defied his captors while being ushered out of court.

He lurched toward Rusty, halting his body six inches from Rusty’s face.

“Dead meat,” he growled as the guards yanked him away.

Rusty’s legs went limp. John reached out to his son. This time, Rusty grasped the hand and fell into the warmth of his father’s arms.

Life & Death Throughout its entire life, a tree never stops growing. That doesn’t mean a tree never grows up. It just means a tree is always growing up from where it is at the moment.

—Tree-ta-tude

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Rusty’s heart rattled with fear in the wake of Prince’s threat. Nightmares twisted the boy’s sleep into premonitions of his own death. The fright of it brought him before Mather’s counsel.

“Nature’s stronghold is always an inherent acceptance that things are as they are for a reason.”

“I don’t understand,” Rusty said.

“I am where I am because that is where US needs me,” Mather said crisply. “If Shem needed me someplace else, US would have put me there. If in the future Shem needs me in another place, there will I be also.”

“I’ve had a vision of my own death,” Rusty said woefully.

Mather explained a tree is keenly aware of both birth and death. It meditates on both frequently to gain the appreciation that there is a time frame for what it must do. It focuses a tree’s attention on where it is now and where it must go.

“Death disturbs you?”

“Deeply,” Rusty answered.

“The end of US. Can there truly be an end to us?” Mather questioned rhetorically. “As trees, we slowly return back into everything from which we came. Is returning to what gave us life in the first place so bad? We are not moving away, just moving closer to our source. In the end, our lives are but the ideas upon which others are meant to build—nothing more than a small step into the forever of which we are all an integral part. I see that as a blessing, my son—not a curse.”

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27

Education of Rusty Rootless Days Eight, Nine, and Ten

Making Good on the Bad of It A sapling maple bends and swirls wildly on the whims of the wind. When grown to a stately adult, it still bends, but with much more steadiness. It has learned being a character and having character are two different things. —Tree-ta-tude

Rusty and John sat together on the grass near Brehmer Creek.

The guns of war had subsided between Rusty’s ears, but an ache still throbbed in his heart.

“Just exactly what were the first words that Ashpuur ever said to you?” John asked.

“You don’t have to suffer any more,” Rusty remembered.

“I’ve repeated them over and over, but the ache is still there.”

“One would think,” John suggested, “that the spirit that gave you those words would also possess the means to make them come true.”

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A male deer halted before a tree to sniff the air. The tree yelled to the forest, ‘Look everybody, the buck stops here.’ —Quote from a tough berry tree named Truman

Rusty stated his problem to Ashpuur as rays of sunlight broke through a mist igniting sparkles on the ash tree’s moist leaves.

“What now?” Rusty asked respectfully. The boy had come to cherish his relationship with Ashpuur. There was an ease in their communion. Best friends, but something more. Ashpuur’s instructions took the form of mere suggestions. Shis questions were always in some way rhetorical.

“Why not make a list of all the people you have harmed?”

“I’ve done a lot of rotten stuff.”

“Haven’t we all?” Ashpuur noted and added once the list was completed, Rusty might consider offering apologies to those he had hurt and make restitution if it was needed.

“No exceptions?” Rusty asked.

“Only one. When to do this would harm the person or someone else.”

Ashpuur explained this process was the only remedy Shem had for removing the ache of remorse.

“And, this is what you wish me to do?” Rusty asked.

“It is what you can do if you wish,” Ashpuur responded.

“You do not have to suffer anymore.”

You can’t enjoy the view by having someone else climb the tree.

—Treeverb

Rusty anguished over the list for months. On it were his family, gang members, and every person ever harmed by every

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crime he had ever committed. It was staggering. A paralyzing fear swept over Rusty when the list was done. He finally grasped the next step was to meet these people face-to-face.

He cringed at the potential humiliation and stood before Mather in a moment of hesitation.

“I’m afraid I don’t know where to start.”

“Afraid or too prideful?” Mather stated bluntly. “Those people on your list are the seeds of your own goodness. Start planting.”

Rusty began with the members of his old gang in the camp.

Some accepted his apologies gracefully. Others told him to stick it up his whazoo. It was a healthy lesson for Rusty over what he was in charge of and what he was not. John brought Rusty’s siblings to the camp for a reunion. After apologies, old rivalries turned into hugs. Several weeks later, Rusty’s mother arrived alone and unannounced. She had been drinking. Shocked at her tattered appearance, Rusty nearly walked away, but asked for Ashpuur’s help before reacting to his impulse. Within this pause Rusty heard Ashpuur’s calm response: “Love is always one-on-one. Despite the invention of the ‘zone,’ one-on-one is still the best defense in basketball.”

Rusty understood the comment and was delighted he didn’t always have to be at the Ash tree to receive Ashpuur’s help. Now, Ashpuur was with him wherever he went. Rusty took his mother’s trembling hand in his and made amends for his mistakes. The running away. The vile words. When she cried, Rusty embraced her. Then a warm and cordial goodbye.

Two months later, Rusty’s mother died of unknown causes in her small apartment. Rusty attended the funeral and cried heartfelt tears over a loved one lost.

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Res-Tree-Tu-Tion Growth starts when we stop doing nothing.

A seed would remain a seed if it never stuck its neck out.

—Sid the Seed

Writing letters was the only way Rusty could make amends to those he had harmed living outside the camp. Every time he wrote one, the warden’s secretary—Emanda Gord—refused to send it. When she thwarted him at every turn, Rusty took a chance. He remembered the fairness of the judge who had handled his case and wrote her a letter explaining what he was trying to do. John mailed the letter. Within two weeks, the warden granted approval and Rusty sat before Cindy to plead his case. The move infuriated Emanda Gord.

“I want to apologize and make restitution in any way I can to pay off my part in the crimes I committed,” Rusty told Cindy as he handed her the list. Cindy was impressed.

“What’s all the rest of this?” Cindy asked as she pointed at the boy’s backpack bulging with papers. Rusty explained they were his notes containing the lessons he had learned from the forest.

“This is all of them?” Cindy asked.

“All of them up to now.”

Cindy took the notes and told Rusty she would make a decision on his request in a week. After her caseload, Cindy sat back in a large sofa chair at her plush home with Rusty’s notes.

She intended just a glance, but ended up reading through the night. It was a no-holds-barred account of a troubled kid searching for his goodness. For some reason, she felt herself strangely attracted to the heart of it. Even Rusty’s writing style impressed her. She felt tinges of embarrassment by its earthy eloquence. She winced when she noticed Rusty had garnered some lessons from the forest that she herself had missed. Im-

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portant lessons. It made her wonder. Cindy awoke the next morning with the last notebook lying on her chest. Within moments she was on the phone to her publisher. “I’d like to halt for a time The Sea and the Tree and have you take a look at something else…”

Little & Large In its growing, a tree handles big things the same as it does small things for it knows all are equal in their importance. —Treeverb

Cindy worked the details of Rusty’s plan through Denel.

Denel set up the meetings—and to ensure propriety—escorted Rusty to every encounter to help negotiate some type of restitution. Most meetings went well. For those that were hostile, Rusty neither argued nor flinched. Within weeks Rusty was helping pave a driveway for a window the gang had broken in a store front. He painted an office space in a gas station where items had been shoplifted. On and on it went.

Emanda Gord became enraged with the project, but Rusty stayed his course despite what she threw at him in extra work and unwarranted punishment. One by one, Rusty made apologies and paid off his crimes. He did not complain. Doing the right thing seemed to have a natural flow to it. Cindy became so impressed with Rusty’s progress she called the boy into her office.

“It’s been a little tough for you,” Cindy said.

“Yes and no,” Rusty said. Without these experiences I could not have written about them—to share the meaning they’ve given me. Rusty thanked Cindy for her help and handed her the latest of his notes. Tears welled up in Cindy’s eyes after the boy had left as she read the first sentence on the

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notes: “The major part of becoming an adult in all its forms is realizing discipline is not something someone does to us, but what we exercise upon ourselves.”

That day Cindy made a decision she had mulled over for weeks. For those that would accept Rusty’s restitution, good.

For those that would not, the crime—at least as it dealt with Rusty—was wiped off the books. It wasn’t a popular decision, but she stuck to her guns. Rusty would have a clean slate.

At the end of Rusty’s list was his biggest mistake. Ian Casder. Rusty consulted with Ashpuur and then in painstaking detail began composing a letter to Ian Casder’s family. Tears flowed with every word he wrote. What he had done was irreparable. Never had Rusty been more troubled. John mailed the letter for his son and a reply came within a week:

Dear Artus Norber, I am Ian’s son and I’ve read your letter. I’d like you to know the type of man my father was. He was purposeful, yet always soft and gentle. Dad always said, ‘Gentleness and firmness are but separate leaves on the same twig.’ Though, he was my father, I have never met a man so balanced between the two. If anybody needed help, he was always there. The kind of guy we wish we all were all the time.

I can remember him telling me that everybody had a spirit of decency in them. He compared that spirit to a room. If it’s messy and we made it so, then we must clean it up. That’s our job. ‘We learn from it,’ he said. ‘That’s life. That’s how it works.’

I can tell from your letter how deeply sad you are for what you did. So am I. It may take some time for me to forgive you, but I am enough of my father’s son to know that I will. I can also tell from your letter that this incident is changing your life for the better. Dad was the type of guy who would have freely given his life for that blessing. He always said nothing bad

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happened from which something good could come of it. You must live with what you did. You must live your life in spite of it. What will you do with it? My hope is that good will come from it for that is the spirit with which my father lived his life.

Sincerely, Ian Casder Jr. ‡ Rusty became determined to make good on the last part of Ian Casder Jr.’s letter, but wasn’t quite sure how to do it. He refused to agonize over it. A comment from Sigmund helped him: “Don’t let your mistakes override the good in you. As a tree, I stand up for what I stand for. I’m not always wrong. Discern the difference.”

Mather also knew the grueling process Rusty had been through with making his amends.

“Good job,” he said as the boy approached. “Did you forget anyone?”

“No,” Rusty stated confidently.

“How about yourself,” Mather countered. “Have you forgiven yourself? You are a part of US as much as anyone else.”

Rusty thanked Mather for reminding him and sat beside the Stream of Goodness to think about it. The more he thought about it the better he felt. Rusty was surprised when he reached into his pocket and pulled out his seeds of goodness. More than half of them were gone and planted.

In Nature, Nothing Stays the Same The juvenile camp was in need of renovation. All the young inmates were being transferred to another facility for the time it would take to complete the renewal project. Rusty prepared

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for the move. It saddened him, knowing he would be leaving Mather behind.

“Nature instinctively knows what to keep and what to give up,” Mather said softly. “It knows when to connect and when to disconnect in its constant growth of change.”

“But, I’ll miss you,” Rusty lamented.

“And, I you. What can I say to tell you how much you have meant to me? You are part of me and I of you, and there is nothing more important in life than knowing that. Goodbye, my son. I will miss you always.”

Rusty became uneasy. Mather seemed to be saying goodbye for good.

“I’ll miss you, too,” Rusty countered, “but I’ll see you when I’m back.” Mather did not answer but merely waved a twig in parting.

Before he left the compound, Rusty ran to the raccoon cage. Due to the move and the animal’s growth, it was time to let them go. Rusty stared at the animals through the wire.

They had become part of him, too. Rusty’s hand shook as it moved to the latch. He hesitated. As Rusty rested his head on the cage, a guard called. He quickly set a satchel of his copied notes in the cage and within minutes, Rusty was on a bus to another camp.

On the same day in a far off town, a newspaper reported a prison break. Nobody knew exactly how or when it happened. All palms apparently had been properly greased. What they did know is Prince had escaped and could not be found.

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28

Half In, Half Out Nature is a sacred text to the Lakota Sioux. As Christians find the holy in the Bible and Muslims in the Qur’an, so the Lakota discover it by reading the signs of nature.

—Quote from Kristree Alberts’ essay: “Nature & Spirituality”

Those who do not sail are amazed at the massiveness of a sailboat sitting on the hard, then again perplexed at how the very same boat seemingly shrinks drastically in size when they see it in the water. As a newborn pushing through the birth canal, the boat’s keel displaces the very water which gives the vessel its reason for being. In this christening, the water accepts the keel as life does the child. And, as the child, there the spirit of the boat sits half within this world and half out of it, perfectly balanced to conduct the business for which it was made.

This concept was not lost on Doctor Ken Wiagan as he tackled building a wooden Nor’Sea 27 sailboat on his acreage in a Rapid City, South Dakota suburb. Ken had some celebrity in his family tree. He was receiving some of the same now—not always to his liking. Five years into his project and only half done, he took his share of humored heckling from neighbors

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about the massive project taking up Ken’s entire backyard.

“Hey, Noah,” his neighbors took glee in saying, “’bout time to get the critters aboard.”

Ken took the remarks in stride, bolstered by his Native American friends who calmed his spirit with a simple, “Ho”— an acknowledgment of their understanding that Ken was doing Wakan Tanka’s bidding. Ken whispered the word to himself as he rested his chin on his newly attached stern pulpit. “Wakan Tanka.” Thoughts of the Lakota Sioux Spirit meaning “to be in the heart of our home and the home of our hearts” made Ken reflect on how he came to being where he was.

Ken met Paula Hill while attending medical school. Paula was obtaining her law degree. Although different as night and day, their encounter was the dazzling dawn where spirits of the opposites meet. Upon first sight, their souls instantly reached out to one another, embraced and said, “You’re it.”

Within six months, they were married. Within one year, both were graduated and living in the land of Paula’s ancestors— Paha Sapa, the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Immediately upon arrival, Paula took Ken to Harney Peak, raised her arms to the spirits and proclaimed: “We are now and forever will be within the heart of all that is.”

Ken wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but he saw such a brilliance come over Paula when she said it, he figured he find out. Ken was not a spiritual man at heart. He liked the finer things in life. Ken obtained a residency at a local hospital that paid him the money to buy them. Opposite and simpler in form, Paula offered her talents at little or no cost to local Native Americans in need of legal aid. Slowly and gently, Paula began introducing her white-man husband to her Lakota ways. Slowly and gently, Ken began accepting them. There were tough spots. The critical juncture came when Tim wanted a newer and bigger house.

“What is it you want of life?” Paula asked him.

Spiritually, Ken had no idea. When he fumbled through a

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few inane explanations and came up with nothing, Paula suggested he talk to a Lakota shaman.

“What is it you want of life?” Red Cloud asked.

A question twice asked and twice fumbled sent Ken pacing nervously before the shaman.

“In the Lakota tradition,” Red Cloud explained, “we call a man who has not accepted his fate from Wakan Tanka as a man who is not walking on the Red Road in a dancing manner.

I can see that you are dancing, but there is an uneasy crick in your step.”

Ken understood instantly what Red Cloud meant, and thus the change in him began.

Ken cringed when Paula explained the four Lakota virtues and colors that represented them. “Yellow is Wowachintanka and stands for fortitude,” she explained patiently. “Blue is Woksape and means wisdom. White is Wachantognaka or generosity, and Red is Woohitika or bravery.”

Ken stroked Paula’s hair softly and for the first time recognized the meaning of the colors woven through Paula’s braids.

“I’ve got the wisdom and fortitude,” Ken said. “But, I’m shaky on the generosity and bravery part.” Paula told him that the warrior in the Lakota Sioux tradition is a symbol that goes far beyond the lance and arrow fighting to which many non-Lakota people connect to it.

“At some point in life, Wakan Tanka reveals to us the fate of our destiny,” Paula said. “We can possess all the other virtues, but if we fail to have the courage to carry it out, the purpose of our life is lost.”

“I don’t know if I have it,” Ken said.

“You will find out differently,” Paula answered him. “I know you have it. I see it in you. Besides, you’re going to need it. I’m pregnant.” ‡

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Branching Out Many times, the faith in our growth depends not upon being an excellent servant, but being just a little bit better one today than we were yesterday. —Tree-ta-tude

Ken soon moved closer to the meaning of Paula’s words while he stood participating in the pipe ritual following a sweat lodge ceremony. A voice came to him carrying a strong, clear, and repetitive message: “Build a boat of wood and sail the four directions of Mother Earth.” Ken didn’t know what to make of it. Yet the voice persisted with its message. And with it was always a visual image of him in a boat on the sea with a woman who definitely was not Paula.

“Christ, what am I, Captain Ahab?” Ken thought to himself. The recurring message shook him enough to ask Paula what it meant.

“You will find out,” she said. “I am sure of it.”

Ken asked Paula whether she had a similar vision. When she said no, Ken trembled.

“I can’t do this without you,” Ken said sternly.

“You will never be without me,” Paula answered calmly as she placed a beaded bracelet containing the four colors of virtues around Ken’s wrist. “Besides,” Paula added, “you must not deny your fate. Remember Wakan Tanka.”

Those were the last human words Ken heard from her. The next day Paula and the unborn child were killed in an auto accident. In the following months, Ken experienced the deepest sorrow he had ever felt. At the same time, he was awash in the greatest love he had ever known from the tribal members who consoled him. Both shook him to his bones.

As he worked to repair the anguish of his shattered heart, Ken’s grasp on the material things in life diminished. He found

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himself offering his services free of charge to those in need.

The more he did, the more the message of his vision pounded in his head. “Build a boat of wood and sail the four directions of Mother Earth.” It led him back to Red Cloud.

“The spirits tell us we walk with one foot on the land and one in the sea,” said the shaman. “Your vision is very powerful for it is the essence of this message. All of your past and your future will come to bear on your willingness to fulfill it.”

“But, I don’t have the skills to even build a boat, much less sail one,” Ken lamented.

“Then obtain them,” Red Cloud said bluntly. The declaration showered Ken with shame.

“The red virtue is failing me,” he said squeamishly.

“Or is it you who fails the virtue?” Red Cloud asked.

When Ken admitted it was so, the shaman told him of a forest with special trees that could help him. “Go there,” Red Cloud instructed, “but, go only if you truly wish to reside within the heart of your home and the home of your heart.

Remember Wakan Tanka.”

Ken arrived at the forest as night fell, just in time to hear a large maple stating Treedom’s Creed after the evening prayers: “As trees we are perfectly balanced, half in and half out of the world. Our roots are out of sight, but we do not deny they are there. We are connected. That which is invisible nourishes and guides the part of us that can be seen. Within us is this simple truth: that which is above the surface is always a reflection of what is below. Our single purpose is to show through our living that one can grow out of darkness into light.”

“That was beautiful,” Ken said as he walked up to the tree and introduced himself. “What is your name?”

“Some call me Mather,” said the tree.

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29

Fear in the Forest A Tree ‘Exposed to dark of night and light of sun, and never hides from either one’

—Poem pulled from the hidden scraps of an unpublished tree poet named Emily Stickenson Though Ken tried to hide it through evasive answers and nervous gestures, Mather zeroed in on his visitor’s problem in a matter of minutes.

“You’re full of fear about fulfilling your fate with Wakan Tanka.”

“Scared to death.” Ken blushed at his own transparency.

“But of building the boat and sailing the seas—is it the right thing to do?” Ken questioned. “It seems so out of my character.”

“You’re seeking assurances and life doesn’t offer them. It is in the building of that character you become assured. Fear is not of Wakan Tanka. Step-by-step, you must work out your own deliverance from trembling.”

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Mather explained the forest offered a whole series of courses on conquering it. He said Ken could speed up the class hours by using Cliff Notes in a satchel left by a young man who had mastered the courses. Ken found copies of the notes lying in an old raccoon cage with its door hanging open and began to read with Mather’s final words pounding in his head: “Wakan Tanka knows all our fears. We conceal nothing. All we do is skirt the confrontation. Inside, I know—you know, we all know—what we are avoiding.”

Tree-Ching Tools on Fear (Taming the Fog) Lesson One: Mechanics of Fog 101—a lower division course: A tree needs a good fog now and then. It comes to tell us things aren’t right—that we’re making much too much of everything. That’s when the fog rolls in and makes the tree blush. When a tree overloads itself with problems that don’t belong to it, fog reduces its vision. It stops the tree from looking way over yonder for answers. It forces it to pay more attention to what’s up close. From the fog, a tree learns not to worry about what it cannot see, which is always far more than one believes. When the tree realizes it must let nature take its course, the fog lifts and the tree is restored to its natural color.

The tree learns the fog limited its sight to give it a new vision.

The tree now sees things more clearly, thanks to the fog.

Lesson Two: I Will Find My Own Way In The Fog. Yah, Right! 203—lower division: At times when lost in the fog, a tree relies on its own stubbornness. It claims it knows its own way through its own blindness. Through its own willfulness, this act is much the same as demanding spring in the midst of winter. Spring comes at a time of its own making. It has a right to come and go as it pleases without the fantasy of our decrees.

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The more a tree fights against this, the heavier the fog must be.

Recess with Sigmund Before a leaf is a leaf, it is a bud all wrapped around itself. It is living, but its purpose does not begin until it unravels itself. —Treeverb

“I have a right to say ‘no’ to all of this?”

“Of course,” Sigmund assured Ken. “‘No’ is a very positive word. A tree can’t play football, so if asked to do so, it declines without embarrassment. Offer talents you have. For things you don’t say, ‘no.’ Only a boob who knows he can’t swim jumps into the deep end hoping for a miracle,” Sigmund chuckled, but then instantly shifted gears to nail his real point.

“My guess is you didn’t become a doctor by having someone wave a magic scalpel over your head.”

Ken got it. He learned to be an orthopedic surgeon. He wasn’t born one. Ken’s mind quickly shifted to a med-school friend from New Hampshire whose father built wooden boats.

Therein laid his access to boat building.

“But, sailing the sea,” Ken wondered.

“One thing at a time. Wakan Tanka would not have given you this fate unless you were capable of preparing yourself for it. Whether you do or not is your choice. But, learn to be thankful for being asked to go where you have not been or you will forever be where you are now.”

New Trees-tament on Fear Continued…

Lesson Three: With Whom Are You Fighting 304—mid-

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dle division: Several who follow this course believe they have many skirmishes to fight. Fog reduces all the battles to the one original battle. In the fog, the tree is left alone with but one opponent—itself. It confronts the nature of this conflict.

It may not have fired the first shots, but it continues the combat by returning the volleys. When it stops this destructive trend, the game falters, the conflict eases, and the chance for purpose and peace begins.

Prep Note for Lesson Four Some people think there is no fight in a tree…until they run into it at sixty miles an hour.

—Treeverb

Lesson Four—An irony to lesson three: Nothing Happens Without Friction. Conquering Agitation over Fog’s Friction Is Paramount For Purpose--405)—upper level course: “Fear’s fog is a bumbling bully of past traumas—real or imagined—revisited. But, it needs an invitation to come. Focus on the good within what you thought was bad, and it drowns out fear’s invitation. Lacking an invite, it will not come, for fear is afraid of its own rejection. Goodness doesn’t erase fear. It surpasses it step-by-step. Once confronted from its over indulgence, fear is a puny pauper. Twice insulted it becomes an irritable pitter-pat. Three times, and it’s a mere caution on the wind to stay alert. Any more than that, and it transforms into an awe-filled tingling for the adventure that lies ahead.

Prep Note for Independent Study Changing the natural order of the world is

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a tad too big of a proposition for most of us.

Changing our desires within this world isn’t.

—Socra-tree’s “Treepublic”

Lesson Five: Fog Refresher Course 506—post graduate work: Occasionally, even when we begin to see the world through the eyes of US, the fog returns to reinforce a commitment to our gifts. Do not view this as punishment for any failures. The revisiting fog is but a refresher course to refine the character of our growth. It is a quiet course taken in our leisure to review the potential for adjustments. It is more like the tree visiting the fog than the other way around. Faith, like all seeds, is in need of watering. Properly attended to, it will always produce a bouquet of hope upon which all life rests. ‡ Traveling Tree When its life ends, a tree can be made into a grand piano or a park bench. At that point, how well the tree has perfected its wood determines whether it will be touched by gentle fingers to make music or stroked by something less inviting.

—Tree-ta-tude

“Up to the task?” Mather asked when Ken returned.

“I am,” Ken responded. “And, I need to find a tree so I can build a boat.”

“Take me,” Mather said abruptly. “I give myself to you as a vehicle to your fate.”

Ken was stunned. “But, you will no longer be a tree.”

“I’ve been a tree,” Mather said. “That was my nature with

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all legs planted in the earth. Now you give me a chance to dip them in the sea. It’s my fate and I rest it gladly in your hands.”

Mather had only two requests of Ken. To name the boat he would make after Chad, Mather’s long-lost friend from youth.

Also, when Ken was done with his voyage he would be required to bring Mather back to this very spot so Mather could dissolve back into the soil which gave him life. Ken agreed.

Mather spent that night bidding adieu to his beloved forest in an elegant speech. It began. “Oh, my dear forest—if I said and did love and no one listened nor is it noted, all the better, for I have said and done it expecting what love demands…”

And in early dawn it ended: “…In this felling I am not falling, but shoving off to distant shores.”

The next morning when Ken sliced the screaming chain saw blade through the middle of Mather’s Mark of Goodness, Ken did not yell, “Timber.” Mather yelled, “Ahooooy.” Then there was a thump on the ground and that was the end of Mather as the forest had known him.

Ken spent a month in New Hampshire learning boat building skills, then returned to Paha Sapa and began shaping the boards of Mather into a boat. After two years of exhausting work, he wavered and nearly gave up his commitment. A UPS truck driver pulled up and changed his mind with a “special delivery” letter.

Dear Sir or Madam: You are the closest surviving relative of the late Ernest Lawrence Thayer. The accompanying letter is hereby delivered to you per a directive of Mr. Thayer’s will.

Ken chuckled in bewilderment. He had always known of his ties to the man who wrote the famous Casey at the Bat, but Ken had no idea what this could be.

To my closest living relative:

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I write this to you near my death. Much has been made of my life, but I haven’t made a great deal of it myself. I hope, in some way the following poem may lead you into a joyful purpose, which I—for a lifetime—have not fully accepted. Every hack that has ever picked up a pen has gleefully parodied my poem of Casey. And not very well, might I add. It’s about time for the author to speak up. May it guide you firmly on your journey…

Ken read as Thayer spoofed his own poem. It told of how Casey had turned into a drunk, then cleaned himself up and tried to get back in the game. But no matter how hard Casey tried to live the dream he wanted, he could not shake the fear that all he would be remembered for was the day he lost the game. Then Casey shed his dream for the fear of it and packed his bat away for good. In the last four lines, Casey—aged and wrinkled—is sitting on a pool-hall step lamenting his decision.

Ken read the lines out loud: “Oh, deep within my soul I know I had two cracks at bat.

At one I failed and two I feared and both I came up flat; No matter if I speak the words or write them with a pen, My life summed up in five sad words: ‘Oh, it could have been.’”

With Thayer’s letter in hand, Ken climbed to the top of Harney Peak. A breeze grazed his cheek when Ken raised his hand to the sky as his wife had done with such happiness a few short years ago. Below as he watched the treetops crest and roll as waves upon the sea, Ken firmly renewed his commitment to his fate. With Mather, he literally would have one foot upon the land and one within the sea.

These were memories now. Ken diligently turned his attention to attaching the bowsprit to the bow of the boat. Ken was surprised he had not noticed it before. The top half of Mather’s Mark of Goodness was at the very leading tip of the

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bowsprit. It made Ken reflect on all that Paula and her tribe had taught him.

“Better hurry up, Noah” a neighbor sniped as he sauntered by. “I hear there’s rain in the forecast.”

“Ho!” Red Cloud countered while leaning on Ken’s backyard fence. “Remember Wakan Tanka.” Ken smiled and shimmied up his mast to attend to higher matters.

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30

Where Technology Meets the Tree A tree possesses all that it needs. It does not hunt for what it is. It makes what it is. It grows itself into places where nothing before existed. It creates itself from the potential that is within itself. —Tree-ta-tude Cindy sat in her mansion with a magnifying glass inspecting the intricate symbols woven into the print of a small painting on loan from Dan Pauish, her neighbor and local art dealer.

She looked up and browsed all the beauty and comfort surrounding her. Her books and work had brought wealth and fame. She was grateful, but a gnawing pain that something was lacking had spurred her to collecting art in hopes it would fill the void.

This particular painting caught Cindy’s eye. At first she thought it just a nature scene, but then noticed Mather’s Mark of Goodness on a tree trunk in the painting’s landscape. She instantly wanted the original, but Dan explained all her money could not buy it. He said the artist who signed her paintings simply as T. Tripis was an enigma in the art world. She shunned

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publicity and only her personal art dealer knew her exact identity. Obtaining one of her paintings was done through a lottery system.

T. Tripis desired a humble life-style. Accordingly, she placed a modest price on each of her paintings to ensure those less well-off had as much a chance to acquire her pieces as the rich. To obtain a painting, people plopped their names in the proverbial hat and the winner was chosen in a drawing. After hearing this, Cindy—with Dan’s help—plopped her name into every proverbial hat in the country where T. Tripis paintings were on the block. But, she never won. Cindy winced at each loss. She had a gut feeling that somewhere down the line these paintings would be worth a fortune.

Cindy became both puzzled and amazed as she examined the T. Tripis print. She began noticing other symbols on the painting. Some she recognized; others, she did not. Some were letters and numbers. Some were merely symbols. In most cases, they were intricately placed into the painting’s content with small lace-like strokes. Unless one was looking for them through meticulous inspection, they would not be seen. Cindy became so intrigued by her discovery she purchased a book containing all the reproductions of T. Tripis’ paintings. What she found was puzzling and amazing.

Each painting was chocked full of these symbols. Except for the Mark of Goodness and a stream, all symbols were different in each painting and each painting was cropped as if only a part of something larger. Looking at each painting made one yearn for something larger. Each painting pinpointed something—a touch, a look, an emotion. Cindy took notes as she scanned each piece and discovered that when seen as a whole, the body of the artist’s work appeared to outline a quiet and gentle character of something. But, what? Confused, she took her dilemma to Dan. “This artist has always puzzled me,” Dan said with what Cindy deemed an affected smile. “All her paintings are one-

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foot squares. Never larger. Never smaller. Very unusual. As she goes along, the artist’s work grows in significance but never in size.”

Dan noted many of the lettered symbols seemed to include a multitude of languages—even the dead languages of Coptic and Sanskrit. Not until Dan mentioned this enigma to a friend and local theology professor over lunch did the riddle begin unraveling.

Still a pensive and meticulous scholar, Father Phil arrived at lunch on time with his ever-present dog named Puppy. Dan hated the dog, but put up with him for the sake of friendship.

A no-nonsense man, Father Phil was quick in his query.

“Show me just two T. Tripis prints,” he said. When Dan offered them up, Father Phil brought them home and was overtaken by their subtle beauty. One painting depicted the hands of a mother who had just released her child into the firm grip of a father’s grasp. Except for the hands, no other parts of the mother or father were seen. The child had a doubting look as he glanced back in his mother’s direction while his father dipped the young tike’s toes in a stream. The child held onto a willow branch above his head as if to resist entrance into the water. Father Phil strained his eyes for hours as he studied the print. Then his face suddenly softened as his eyes fixed on a symbol painted to look as a ripple made where the young boy’s toe touched the water.

“I’ll be darned,” Father Phil whispered to himself. “Hexagram 57.” There before him in the ripple was the ancient hexagram from I Ching, “The Book of Change,” which symbolized submission. And, Father Phil made out the letters and numbers “b-e-12-13 within the strokes making up the veins on the mother’s hand which offered her child into this submission. He grabbed his Bible and read the 12th verse of the 13th chapter of Ecclesiastes.

“Submission,” he said to himself as he sat back and took in the whole painting. “I’ll be darned,” he repeated to himself.

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Father Phil didn’t wait for the weekly lunch. He called Dan immediately and told him to meet him at the cafe and bring all the T. Tripis prints he could get his hands on. When they met, Father Phil grabbed the prints from Dan and started pouring over them in the small café booth.

“What’s got you so excited?” Dan asked.

“It’s a code of sorts, Father Phil explained. “All of her paintings have hundreds of these symbols, but they’re different on each painting.

“A code for what?”

“A theme, maybe a character of sorts. I don’t know. If the artist has gone to all this trouble to place them on her paintings there must be some type of link.”

“Interesting concept, but how do you prove it?”

“All the symbols are spiritual in nature. Our college’s mainframe contains a database of all such symbols from ancient times to the present. May I have these prints?” Before Dan could answer, Father Phil tore out the door toting the rolled-up prints. ‡ US is simple in Shis instructions and difficult in Shis assembly.

“Scan these paintings for symbol identification and any holy text or cultural references, then download them into the mainframe,” Father Phil instructed one of his grad students as if it was as easy as making coffee. “Then ask the computer what code and whose code these figures symbolize.”

Father Phil felt queasy about putting his computer quest into the hands of Brad Barnham, a graduate assistant from India whom he neither liked nor trusted. He broiled at Brad’s off-color humor and called his theological concepts “simple minded drivel.” Phil bristled when Brad told people he was an

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agnostic gone good. Brad was a good person, but not without his mischief.

Brad did what he was told to do with the mainframe he called Vanna RI (Random Initializer), but he purposely added a few glitches into the computer program to humor himself as he waded through over 600 prints. Brad made the language so simpleminded it would make a first-grader cringe. He also substituted a few words for common components in the data base’s vocabulary. It took just a few key entries to make the switches: God=Big Kahuna Faith=Hubcap Will=Pancake Earth=Basketball Heaven=Disneyland Hell=Chicago Devil=Jerk Behold=Holy Smokes Prayer=Puppy Peace=Applesauce Differences=Squeegee-marks Different=Squeegee

Joy=’57-Chevy Happy=Jellybean Worthwhile=Hunky-chunky Love=Smooshy Blessing=Pillow Good=Toad Small=Wiener Large=Rhinoceros Pathway=Bathwater Action=Pudding Death=Circle Business=Fiddle-Faddle

Father Phil became frenzied over the completion of his computer quest. He hounded Brad continuously for results during the week it took the computer to decipher the symbols and spit out the final report. When it did, Father Phil was livid. “Brad, what in the hell have you done!”

Holy Smokes! Hi, from Disneyland. I be Big Kahuna. Always same, always changing. How that be? Look at tree. Tree grow, but stay same tree. Why you not growing? You be part of me. I be part of you. How that be? Big Kahuna no want you

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live in Chicago no more.

How you be me? Don’t be Jerk. See your part in me. Pretty soon all peoples on Basketball put me together. How you do that? Be my Pancake. You do this, you be part of Me. I be but these thoughts in you: soft, gentle, unselfish, self controlled, honest, quiet, innocent, good, humble, pure, kind, Applesauceful, patience, tolerant, understanding, unifying, useful, grateful, helpful, Hubcapful and ‘57-Chevyful. This be my language. This be Me. How be you? This not be you, change your Pancakes to my Pancake and Basketball be like living in Disneyland.

Big Kahuna create you. Be creative Pillow. You not never alone if you are. Why that be? This be my character. This character be you only true treasure. How that be? People say phooey to Big Kahuna. They not be my Pancake and be Unjellybean. They not see treasure in themselves. But, they see Big Kahuna in you. Then, they have Hubcap there be hope for them. Then they find the treasure in them and pass it on. Sound like ponzi game, but works. Go on forever. Very simple.

Holy Smokes! See Big Kahuna in all peoples on Basketball.

Remember, Disneyland have many Squeegee rides. You speak much unlike languages. Only language everybody understand be Mine. Vocabulary listed above. Only one that matter. Many Squeegee elevator rides to get to Disneyland. None easy, but all Hunky-Chunky. Don’t clobber each other about Squeegee-marks. Why it make big deal how you describe same thing? Smooshy is Smooshy. No get stuck in own traffic. Make no Squeegees. Think this way: only one Bathwater to Disneyland, highway get congested. More roads better. It be my Bathwater Decongestion Plan—Squeegee Bathwaters to same place, always under new construction. I make new Bathwater comfort you, not scare Chicago out of you. What matters? Your life. You be my gift to Basketball. You want Applesauce on Basketball. That not possible ‘til you find Applesauce in yourself. When you do, there Big Kahuna be.

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Holy Smokes! Know this: You but twit in universe, but Big Kahuna Smooshys you. Know this. Big Kahuna say again.

Know this! Big Kahuna Smooshys you. Be no more Rhinoceros than you are. Most time better to stay Wiener. Best you can in own way try leave Basketball just little bit better than when you landed on it. Wiener things count. Usually Rhinoceros things don’t.

Holy Smokes! You be part of innocent spirit of Toadness before you land on Basketball. What be purpose to life there?

To prove nobody and nothing can take this away from you no matter what. Know this be you reassembling me. That be plan.

I be in all things. You be, too. Your greatest Jellybeanness and Hunky-Chunkiness meet at Basketball’s deepest need. Why you where you is? That where I need you to be a Pillow. How you do with this?

Holy Smokes! Find you Mark of Toadness. Swim much in Toadness Stream, but it be but dog-paddle going nowhere if you no within my Pancake. Like cake, no frosting.

Holy Smokes! Big Kahuna give you gifts. Like fruits on tree. Grow them. Give them away. They be Me in you. No give. No get. Big Kahuna firm on this.

Holy Smokes! All things on Basketball exist to heal all things. Find them. That what brain for.

Holy Smokes! If wrong, right it. If wronged, forget it. You perfect or what? How you like it everybody remember only your screw-ups? See the Toadness in everyone. Then you see Toad in you.

Holy Smokes! Beware fame and fortune. I list treasures above. All rest Jerk stuff.

Holy Smokes! No get too Rhinoceros for britches. Be satisfied with Wiener part in big play. Nobody like a Jerk. You try play Me, you live in Chicago long time. My stage. Your role. Live it. Keep nose out other pieces’ Fiddle-Faddle. Not easy! Sometime you no like how I run Basketball. Don’t be Wiener-minded. You no know everything. Trust Me. Hubcap

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is but hope things be okay. They are. I got Rhinoceros picture.

You got Wiener one.

I know you fear Circle. Circle like nature on Basketball.

No need fear Circle if trust me. Do you? If not, Holy Smokes this: you be okay before you born. Where were you then? With Me. Be same place when Circle turns.

Holy Smokes! You be Big Kahuna divine idea. I make you from this. But, Toad and gentle thought need Pudding. Take some. Then people see Me in you. You do, then I be Jellybean and you be full of ’57-Chevy, too. Basketball then be Squeegee game.

Holy Smokes! Life be tough sliding much time. 57-Chevyful be anyway. Take courage. No courage Me Pancake no be done. Rhinoceros strength come you unionize with me. Puppy be Toad. Help you get me message. Line always open—No extra charge long distance. But, Holy Smokes! Big Kahuna pooped out on too much Puppy and no Pudding. I no care you want big boat in Caribbean. Make life your Puppy. That I hear. That where you and Big Kahuna become one.

Holy Smokes! Big Kahuna need you help with all above.

Choice be yours, now. Past gone. Future not here. Now be all you have. Trust me. I be your Pillows always forever.”

Big Kahuna have two P.S.’s P.S.#1: Dumb-looking letters on corners of each painting make no sense even to Big Kahuna. Only thought—puzzle no done yet.

P.S.#2: Tell artist no spell name right. “Spirit”not spell T-RI-P-I-S. Father Phil furiously crumpled the paper and tossed it to the floor. “You’re fired!” he screamed at Brad and stormed to his office.

Shaken by the outburst, Brad quickly switched Vanna RI to its normal language mode and hit “print.”

Father Phil sat slumped over his office desk. What he

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thought was his last crack at discovering a unifying theme of the soul had disintegrated with the antics of a nincompoop grad student.

“Here are the corrected results of the scans,” Brad whispered sheepishly behind the door as he slipped the printout through the mail drop and hurried away.

Phil rolled his eyes back, picked the paper up with disgust and began to read with cheerless attention: Behold! Greetings from the true Spirit of Yourself. You know me by many names. This is good. I am the Divine Principal of Universal Goodness. You are the potential of it. Know that you are part of me and I of you. I am always the same but always changing. I am the becoming of what I will be as are you. I know this is difficult to understand, so I have given you the symbol of the tree: It grows in goodness, but stays the same.

Should you choose to truly live, life is much the same…

Father Phil’s mood softened as he continued to read the simple, yet elegant statement. In the middle, he began to tear.

By the end, Phil found himself sobbing.

You are my children and I love you. Make your life the prayer of goodness that I may hear you to the end of time.

Know that I am with you always. Doubt this not and I shall always be as shall you.

“How beautiful, yet simple,” Father Phil whispered to himself. He grasped in a moment through a few hundred simple, but shining words what all his studies over the years had denied him—the character of faith that threaded through all spiritual paths—the link. He felt a warmth come over him as he reached for the phone.

“Dan, the computer results are in from the painting symbols. It’s big, Dan. Very big. The link of faith throughout all

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time. The differences vanquished by simply stating the similarities. It was so simple I couldn’t see it.”

Father Phil did not wait for a response. He hung up the phone with a puzzled look on his face. How in the world, he thought to himself, could one person do all this work. If it took one of the largest mainframes in the country a full week working at full tilt, it should have taken the artist ten lifetimes to complete. And, the computer had the symbols given to it, and wasn’t required to creatively camouflage them in dazzling works of art. For the first time in his life, he was humbled by the linking of a depth of scholarship and simplic-it-tree. He looked at Puppy and Puppy barked a howling yelp. “Man’s best friend!” Phil’s voice thundered as his memory instantly bolted back to Mather’s prediction about Puppy. His own lack of faith and decency embarrassed Father Phil, and the emotion turned his thoughts quickly to Brad. Father Phil realized his own doubt and lack of a sense of humor had failed to see the simple brilliance this young lad possessed.

“Big Kahuna laugh at me now big time,” Father Phil said to himself with a smile as he walked into the computer department to deliver an apology.

“I am so sorry I ruined your discovery, Father,” Brad said as Phil approached.

“Quite the opposite,” Phil said. “You kept me from missing it altogether.”

Over the next month, Father Phil and Dan worked on a series of articles for prominent art magazines. Numerous T. Tripis prints were published, along with explanations of the symbols. The lead article was titled “The Art of Spirit.” Within a year, T. Tripis was the most famous painter that nobody knew—a spiritual Picasso without a body. Her paintings— and the mystery attached to them—had its effect. Art dealers were now willing to pay millions to get their hands on T. Tripis paintings. As for the artist herself, she neither took advantage of the fame nor divulged her identity. Her work

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said what she wanted said, and it was part of a larger plan. The moderate prices on her future pieces stayed the same as did the lottery. But, now there was no hat in the country large enough in which to plop all the names clamoring for her work.

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31

Paradox’s Mystery The passion that hounds us gallops on the bark of our questions.

—Socra-trees

Father Phil scratched his head in frustration as he scanned hundreds of T. Tripis prints strewn over his desk. He had spent months trying to decipher what Vanna RI had drawn a blank on—the cryptic symbols, letters and numbers on the corners of every painting. In an effort to help, Brad isolated groups of the corner symbols and fed them as a combined aggregate back into the computer using hundreds of different programs. After each attempt to decode the symbols, Vanna RI’s response was always the same short statement: “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Both men tired of hearing it. It doesn’t make any sense!

“Then our only hope is to find the artist herself,” Phil said.

This time using a nationwide database of clients for painting supplies, Vanna RI quickly spit out ten potential phone numbers for T. Tripis. Brad hit pay dirt on his seventh call.

“Trisha T. here,” Trisha said coyly.

Brad quickly deciphered the deception and hung up the phone. Vanna RI instantly produced an address from the phone trace.

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Father Phil felt an ironic uneasiness when the address led them to the same forest he had been at for answers so many years ago. Curiously astonished to see a man of the cloth and a scrawny Indian kid with a turban on his head at her door, Trisha let them into her cabin without question. The cabin was but a façade for a large, insulated art studio sitting beneath a thirty-foot vaulted ceiling—all of which dwarfed the living quarters. The two erudite scholars stood stunned. Trisha sensed their awe and stood in silence as they slowly absorbed the spectacle of her art.

In the center of the studio rested a perfectly square, gigantic frame laced with intricate carvings. Its width took up half the studio. Its height reached within a foot of the vaulted ceiling’s peak. Draped over the frame was a strange type of translucent paper with the tiniest of wires running through it in some inexplicable format. The wires culminated at a junction on one side of the frame. From there a larger wire ran to a computer terminal with a huge monitor. Behind the paper and neatly within the borders of the frame, were exact reprints of Trisha’s paintings lined up side by side from top to bottom.

The reprints filled up three-quarters of the upper frame’s borders.

The space below was empty. Neither Phil nor Brad knew what to make of it. Phil’s expectations for a massive library to complete her research were dashed. Only forty or fifty volumes tidily lined a corner bookshelf. Phil squinted to scan their titles and was perplexed. Most of the volumes centered in on the most ghastly subjects known to man. With thousands of questions running through his mind, Phil fumbled his way through introductions and tried to explain why he and Bard were here. In the process, his mind swayed again as his eyes stuck on a large, but familiar painting sitting next to one of Trisha’s small easels—Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam from the Sistine Chapel in a form cropped down to just the outstretched hands of God and Adam. It was striking. Each hand

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was two feet long.

“What do you do with that?” Phil asked.

“I meditate on the space between the hands,” Trisha answered. That’s where the answer to most everything is.”

Exasperated, Phil dropped all pretenses. “Just exactly how did you come up with all of what you’ve done?” Phil asked bluntly.

Trisha calmly explained Mather’s concept of the divine— the ever-changing-always-the-same universal spirit of goodness—US as he called it.

“I know all people need to have their God or Ideal in their own way, but I, for myself, needed to find the connection—the principals upon which that connection is made. And, at least for myself, I found it. The symbols of our ideals are different, but the result of those ideals very similar at the basic level of the heart, which is where we’re all connected.

“But no books!” Phil blurted. “Your research should fill libraries.”

“I did not discover it,” Trisha said curtly, “It was a gift given freely to me in the Treasure Trove Grove. It was always there for me to see. I just needed to get myself there to see it.

Once I did, I just collected the symbols, then wove them into my paintings—or maybe I should say, they wove themselves into my paintings.”

Phil’s heart dropped to the floor the moment Trisha said the words ‘Treasure Trove Grove.’ He realized how he had squandered away the trip to the grove years ago and fessed up about it to Trisha.

“Well then, Father Phil you have come to the right place.

The grove is near. It is always near. Go there. Brad is welcome to stay here.”

Father Phil scurried out the door pulling Puppy on his leash. Quickly, Brad and Trisha seemed to hit it off. Hearts of the same heart. Each understood what the other was going to say before it was said. They jabbered on for hours as if they

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were old friends meeting after a lengthy separation.

Father Phil’s Treasure Trove Grove All trees are different, yet the same. Run that vine through your teeth and see if there are any knots in it. —Socra-trees

Father Phil stood before Gracey with clothes tattered and torn, but he didn’t care. He had arrived. The sun was setting and Gracey began to glow with such brilliance Phil could but glance at her for only seconds at a time. In the momentary glimpses, Phil noticed Gracey had weathered many storms, yet everything about her and what she offered shined in such a radiant glow of goodness it dazed him into a giggle as if he had been tickled. Then Gracey asked her required question for entrance and Phil answered without argument: “When the light meets the darkness or the darkness meets the light!” Within that exact moment, an innocent, yet inexhaustible curiosity quivered through Phil’s bones, dissolving his defenses. He the teacher was now the pliable student. Finally, he was teachable.

“Where am I going here?” Phil asked.

“To a place so peaceful that its goodness cannot be unnerved even in the face of honest doubt.”

“And, the secret of this peace?”

“Nothing more than an experience of hope in a miracle of options on a scale so vast we cannot before or after fathom the immensity of its possibilities. Enter, my good and faithful friend.”

Under the exquisite colors of the setting sun, Phil stepped into the grove and met each tree representing one individual character of the gods. Each reached out to embrace him: Gratefulness, Humility, and all the rest. At the moment of

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each touch his body shook in a peaceful quiver. He did not understand it, but somehow enjoyed it. The reaction quietly extracted from him a confession: he had made himself a master in the theory of these characters and yet remained an abject amateur in their practice. He blushed in embarrassment at the thought of it.

Last in line of the character trees was Compassion. Its branches were closely interwoven with the Tree of Acceptance whose limbs intermingled with the Tolerance Tree. And each of these three trees had their largest limbs touching in the Tree of Joy. When all four trees simultaneously engulfed Phil with their branches, a calm voice within Phil spoke: You think my love for you is beyond your hope. It isn’t. It’s beyond your dreams. With that, the trees released Phil deeper into the grove’s mystery.

Phil marveled in his walk at the rising and falling and rising again within the grove—it’s endless connecting and disconnecting parts were somehow connected to the pace of his gait. When Phil stopped, all movement halted and within this still point of eternity he saw how the forest had no derision for a wandering vine intuitively breeching the norm and shooting far off the beaten path. The forest knew that given the circumstances, it was simply doing nothing more than searching for it’s proper place—discovering its life at this exact moment in time.

Again Phil moved forward and saw how in the forest, birch gave way to elm, and elm to oak within such a slow silence no one would notice—how in the cycle each part left something of itself behind, while moving on to something new. Through it all, each particular element operated in its own best interests, which mysteriously locked into the best interest of the whole—where the effort to strike a balance was not an ending, but a never-ending process.

As the stages and seasons flew by in a whirlwind, Phil saw where a falling leaf and that of one budding were different but

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the same in some inexplicable mystery that neither begged nor demanded reverence but deserved it on its own merit. Though much was answered, the mystery remained.

Suddenly, Phil became confused when he reached a crossroads. Out of thin air, an owl gently landed on his shoulder.

“Which of these paths should I take,” Phil inquired of the owl.

“Where are you going?” the owl asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Then it doesn’t matter,” the owl said before flying off.

The more Phil got the point, the less indecisive he became as he walked scrutinizing the constant joining together and disconnects among all the forest’s roots, leaves and branches.

When he stopped, he realized that the loss of a connection was the very impulse to reconnect to something else—to gain from the previous connection—to grow from the loss of it. But to do so each part had to let go of what it had before. None of the joining together or pulling apart was good or bad in and of itself, but both seemed resolute in answering the grove’s impending question: “If this be chaos, give it form.”

Phil began to see the forest and all its part in a constant state of flux as a paradoxical mystery. He began experiencing the seed of it sprout within himself. He was the same as these parts, yet different. Different, but the same. Unity in diversity. Then, the calm voice spoke again: “In trying to absorb the mystery it would be helpful to stop trying to be so mysterious yourself. Open up a bit. Infinity means infinity. You want everything to be accounted for. Think about it. If it was, there would be nothing left to live for. Proceed my good and faithful servant.”

Within an instant, Phil found himself standing before the Nobody Tree. Without a word passing between them, Phil understood the implication of Nobody’s name instantly. Nobody possessed all the qualities of the gods and practiced them to such perfection they made him nearly anonymous in a for-

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est made up of every particle of what it was—large and small, good and bad. He was not born this way. He was born to become this way. Here stood before Phil in reverent silence the mystery and the paradox—a Nobody, who in some strange way, was Everybody. In Shis unshakable compassion rooted in years of practice, Nobody reached out to Phil with a branch full of sparkling diamonds. Upon them contained all the spiritual symbols of the world, many of which Phil did not recognize or understand. These were his seeds of growth. These were his prayers. Some partly planted and answered. Many others, yet to be sown. They tingled in the confines of Phil’s hands.

The Return A tree always returns from where it came.

—Treeverb

“I have a plan for the culmination of my work, and I would like your help with it,” Trisha told Brad. She gave him the outline of it, but not the specifics. “It involves this big frame, the computer, and all the symbols on the corner of the paintings. Don’t let anybody know until I send you a letter on it.”

“When?” Brad asked.

“When its time,” Trisha answered as both turned their heads to see Phil march through the door. Phil felt awkward when he saw the bubbly look on the faces that stood before him.

“How did it go?” Brad asked.

“Progress, but perfection still alludes me.”

Trisha laughed. “Maybe the whole point is not to arrive at our destination but to reside within it.”

“You know the reason we came here was to find out about

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the symbols—” “—Just another mystery, isn’t it?” Trisha interrupted while winking at Brad.

Phil inferred correctly he wasn’t about to get an answer.

At least for now he could tolerate a mystery and still be happy about it.

“Just exactly where is it that you’re from?” Phil asked. Trisha put her hands on her hips and moved into the uncomfortable zone of Phil’s face to give her answer.

“My mother met my father Matthew back in 1930. At first, they didn’t know if it would last,” Trisha said. Then she stopped with no further explanation and patted Phil on the cheek. It was a strange and weird answer. Neither Phil nor Brad knew what to make of the comment. Both chalked it up as the odd liberty given to creative people to say mindless things cloaked within some type of artsy-fartsie mumbo-jumbo. Phil grabbed Brad’s arm and bid Trisha goodbye. Phil glanced one last time at the space between God’s and Adam’s outstretched hands, then walked out the door with a curious smile.

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Father Phil’s Quest The great, good US looked down and smiled, counting each Shis loving child, for Maple, Birch and Spruce of blue, all loved Shim through the gods they knew.

—Famous poem in Treedom by Ashfred, Larch Treenyson Father Phil sat quietly in his college office resting his chin upon folded hands. The Treasure Trove Grove had equally unnerved him and ignited a heartfelt spark. It dragged Phil out of his armchair quarterbacking of faith and stuck him in the game—smack dab into the center of creation’s vital force. It lifted him above the pettiness of the material world’s muddled thinking to a place where concentration and contemplation dissolved into pure rest and assurance—a place of such unfaltering hope that only joy could flow from it. It was exhilarating—a spiritual experience the likes of which Phil had felt the tinges of in his own faith, but now he had felt the pant of its warm soothing breath elsewhere.

The notion that such experiences were not singular in his own faith, but plural in others, consumed him. Are the experiences different? How different? Should he explore it further? The question carried with it both excitement and fright.

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To find out he would have to personally immerse himself on paths alien to his own. But, was he willing to potentially lose his priesthood and worldly security if he did? Slowly but deliberately, Phil reached down to his bible and turned to John 14:2. In my Father’s house are many dwelling places…

Phil took a two year sabbatical, and so began his quest.

The Religion of Science From the surroundings in which it is, each tree must seek its nourishment to grow.

From that alone it must ignite its bliss to produce it fruit.

—Tree-ta-tude

Phil began in his own backyard. A shiver shot down his spine as he entered the college’s science building. If he was going to get his hands dirty, he felt this was a good place to start. Phil spent months there immersing himself in the sciences with the help of his secular colleagues. Phil defined the summation of his entire experience through two encounters.

The first was Doctor Thalamus—an expert on brain chemistry who everybody called “Hypo.”

“Science is your God,” Phil told Hypo. “Baptize me.”

The more Hypo talked about brain chemicals called neuropeptides and receptors, the more fascinated Phil became.

“Didn’t teach you this in seminary?” Hypo joked.

Phil was learning, at least in his own mind, how God chemically fashioned man—or in Hypo’s mind—how man evolved.

Hypo explained how every feeling we have—good or bad— is a chemical reaction induced by a thought. Hypo gave Phil all the particulars, but its essence boiled down to not only a scientific fact but a spiritual one: Thought processes produce chemicals that cause material changes at the cellular level. A

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bad thought creates a negative chemical reaction that docks itself on cells. If negative thoughts are continuous, they so override the cells that the cells become addicted to them. The more they have, the more they want, until negative thought becomes literally a chemical addiction.

“Then what about positive thoughts?” Phil asked.

“That’s the fascination,” Hypo said with glee. It works just the same but in the opposite. “So it is us, ourselves actually producing our own chemistry—in so many words, for what we want to be addicted to. Whether it’s good chemistry or bad depends on us. We’re just at the tip of the iceberg with these studies. There is so much more to learn.”

“So where does that put us,” Phil asked.

Hypo laughed. “Can we agree that whether this process is created or evolved, it doesn’t change the fact that this is the way man is? He breathes in what he thinks and the cells of his life are governed by it.”

Phil noted Hypo’s high state of enthusiasm for his work— his faith so-to-speak in pushing past the threshold of the known into the unknown and the excitement and purpose it gave him. “If you want to go deeper into this,” Hypo said, “try the fellows in the quantum physics lab. They’re a whacko bunch and a serious lot all packed into the same luggage.”

A man of the cloth was the last person the physicists expected to pop in for a visit. They all left their tables and surrounded Phil as he entered their lab.

“Quite honestly, I’m not really sure what quantum physics is,” Phil told the group.

“Nothing more than the study of energy at it minutest form, a group member said.

“What do you find there,” Phil asked.

“In short, what we find in the single cell is literally the potential for endless possibilities.”

Phil listened as each group member took a crack at explaining it. Phil marveled at their consensus that the study of

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quantum physics was, in fact, an endless study and experience within the energy they themselves examined, but of which all thought they were a part.

“And, of all this,” Phil pressed, “what is the most fascinating thing you’ve found?” A young sparkly-eyed scientist moved forward from the rear of the group.

“When we look at the main items within a cell—well, at times they just disappear. The very particles that structures the cell—that gives it mass and material values goes poof.”

“Where does it go?” Phil asked. All the scientists pointed their palms to the ceiling.

“Nobody knows!”

“And, what do you call this when it happens?” Phil asked.

“The God in the machine. That’s where you come in Father.”

They all burst into laugher at the mystery and irony of it within their two separate vocations. As Phil thanked the group and said his good-byes, he watched as each member hurriedly went back to their work. There was a type of tenacious intrigue about it—an excitement concerning the mystery. Phil sat down on the stoop when he exited the science building and rolled down his right sock. He stared at the mark on his ankle he had received when he had dangled his foot in the Stream of Goodness. It was the same mark Mather had on his trunk, except there were identical hearts in both circles that made up the sign of infinity.

The Lewis & Clark Issue In our attempts to discover, sometimes our efforts to settle our minds temporarily unsettles it. —Quote from Sacagawea in effort to explain to her bosses they were not really lost, but just out exploring.

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Phil flew to the Far East and sought out whoever was willing to share the spirit of their hearts. From small mountaintop huts in Cambodia to lavish pagodas in Bangkok, Phil immersed his own heart in scores of unfamiliar rituals of differing beliefs. Could he see their god in his and his in theirs? A panic seized Phil at the beginning of each submersion—a fear of sorts that he was engrossed in sacrilege against his own religious creeds. Yet, within a short time, countless experiences hit a calming intersection within his own beliefs, many times expanding an awareness and insight into his own faith—a sense of two hearts melting into one. Upon leaving, Phil asked a very pointed question to Chi Van Hun, a Buddhist monk in DaNang.

“What would you say is the exact nature of our wrongs?”

The monk gently placed his hand on Phil’s heart as he answered. “We can see the power of our faith by examining the life we are living. The exact nature of our wrongs stems from a failure to interpret our experiences as a beautiful spirit created for a meaningful purpose. That we do is the point of all our spiritual quests—an unveiling of what was always there. The original gift—the gift of choice to do so.”

Phil foraged the globe for over a year, plucking what he could from the spiritual rites and rituals in hundreds of different cultures. He stared into cave fires in the Andes and bathed in the Ganges. The variety of Hinduism intrigued him.

It seemed a faith where there was room for all the gods—each not so different than the character of gods he met in the Treasure Trove Grove. Phil traveled on. In many rituals, he found delight. In yet others, his Western mind could neither comprehend nor distinguish the minute nuances of significant differences. But, in each he saw the human thread weaving itself into a communal tapestry. Then, he flew to Jerusalem where three major religions intersect in the love of God amidst one of the most war-torn regions on earth.

Lia Hash met Phil at the airport. Her mother was Jew-

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ish. Her father, Islamic. Their daughter was taught to embrace both faiths.

“Assalamu Alaikum,” Phil greeted his former graduate student as he stepped off his plane.

“Shalom,” Lia said.

It was the Islamic spiritual month of Ramadan. A reverent calm overcame Lia’s household as Phil participated in the fasting and late night calls to prayer. Lia talked frequently of the war in her country, the peace in her heart, and how her faith provided the strength to withstand it. Phil felt weak and ate little at the final feast of Ramadan. The fragile state may have been helpful in what happened next.

Lia led Phil to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount where he began reciting Hebrew prayers and within moments found himself in a constant rocking motion, back and forth, from toe to heel. The motion subdued him into a mild trance as if he was a baby rocking himself in his mother’s arm. From nowhere and everywhere a tumultuous emotion of pure, raw power and unfettered connection rumbled through his body that felt like fingers from a thousand different hands lacing themselves together in union.

With clear spiritual eyes, Phil saw the intersection of all the rituals he experienced. Ramadan’s reverent prayers were this, and this was the heartfelt echo of the Rosary’s repetition, the guttural throat chants and mantras of the Far East, and the African dancers gripping holy spears punching reverberating holes in the Sahara’s sands. This was the link. Different, but the same. The crossroads of the gods. A place where the soul will know no deformity or separation and senses in the deepest way that all hearts are connected. And with a cool breeze streaming over this fiery heart of communion, all Phil could do to express it was to sit down to still his shaking torso, softly touch the mark upon his ankle, and feel the gift of tears flood down his cheeks.

“Peace be with you,” Lia said to Phil as he boarded his

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plane to leave.

“And, to you,” Phil responded while examining the look on Lia’s face. Within it was both the weight of her peoples’ turmoil and yet a stronger faith that peace would somehow come. Phil leaned over and whispered in her ear: “Oh, this flimsy, intangible thing called hope upon which we risk it all— such a fragile thing yielding a pull so ferocious that to break away from it would be unspeakable.”

The Sweat If we are really sweating the differences, it may help to realize we are one of them.

—Tree-ta-tude

In the land of Paha Sapa, Phil felt uneasy as he shed his clothes down to his underwear and crawled on bended knees through the flapped door into the blanket-wrapped, domed lodge set within a clump of trees. The Sioux Sweat Lodge Ceremony was the last stop on Phil’s quest. Red Cloud had explained the four doors, or stages, of the ritual to him before hand. Red Cloud made clear that many have a vision in the final stage called the “healing door.” The last to arrive, Phil clumsily crawled over others in the darkness to reach his spot opposite the flap door. With his eyesight swept away in the blackness, he could not see those surrounding him, but felt their presence in some strange realm beyond the senses.

Red Cloud poured water over the glowing, red-hot Grandfather rocks in the center fire pit, breaking the silence with a blistering sizzle. The water detonated into steam, weaving itself slowly around Phil’s body. Red Cloud began a chanting song praising the Creator for the gifts of Mother Earth.

In their Lakota tongue, all joined in. The thunderous chant

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bounced off the inner walls and vibrated in Phil’s chest. Then each softly voiced their own individual gratitude and respect to the Creator for their bounty and their ancestors. Mitakuye Oyasin. Phil listened in awe as the beauty of their words floated one by one around the glowing Grandfathers.

Phil’s skin began to burn as Red Cloud ladled on more water. The holy man granted each a chance to give voice to the heaviness upon their hearts. Phil strained his eyes, searching for something solid in the darkness as the words of daunting wounds pierced the molten night inside the hut. The darkness stripped the heart from each body and then melted each into one greater heart above the Grandfathers’ glow. There, too was Phil’s heart. Though the injuries were different, the hearts were the same and Phil realized once again he was fused in union at the crossroads of the gods.

Phil felt Red Cloud flinging water off his fingertips toward everyone in the lodge, one at a time. The cool droplets felt like heaven as they splashed against and dripped down Phil’s burning chest. During the healing door, Red cloud heaped ladle after ladle upon the glowing Grandfathers. Hot stakes of heat tore into every pore of Phil’s body. He became woozy. Again, Red Cloud ladled water. It burned Phil’s lungs to breath. He felt himself passing out. Just before losing consciousness, a stunning, bright marbled-sized light appeared just in front of his forehead. Phil could not tell if it was inside or outside his head. He focused on it. Without thought or guidance, he crawled—body, mind, and soul—inside the tiny light. It birthed a stillness through which nothing could penetrate to harm him. Engulfed within the light, a vision materialized on his lap. It was a cooking recipe box, large in size and glowing.

Phil passed out when he saw it. Red Cloud swung the flapped door open. A cold gust of wind swooped in, hammering Phil in the chest, restoring him to consciousness.

Standing outside the lodge, Phil scanned all the people who had shared one heart inside the lodge. Instantly, he saw

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all their different shapes and physical flaws. One by one he noted them, and they noticed him noticing. Inside, he had felt their hearts. The stark difference of perception he had inside embarrassed him of the one he was experiencing outside.

Phil slowly looked down at his skinny, wrinkly-white, earthsmudged body in his sopped underwear. Now he saw what they saw—the difference. It ignited a rumble of laughter.

The Cocoon For the caterpillar residing in the forest, living in a cocoon is normal. So is escaping it.

—Treeverb

“It wasn’t much of a vision,” Phil said despondently as Red Cloud drove him back to the airport. “I was expecting an animal of sorts—a hawk or deer, maybe—something closer to the heart of your culture. But, all I came up with was something to satisfy my hunger—a recipe box. Good Lord.”

“Me thinks you make little dribble over big waterfall,” Red Cloud said, mimicking the false stereotype of his native syntax to make his point. “The Creator does not have a palate for blandness, so he prepares a feast so diverse and plentiful that everybody will find a taste for something on His table. All different, but equally the same in their capacity to nourish.”

“We have different taste buds for God!” Phil said excitedly. “And the beauties within the mystery are in fact the differences themselves. A million different recipes for basically the same thing.”

“Ho! Maybe six-and-a half billion,” Red Cloud said while stopping his pickup near the airstrip.

As Phil walked to his plane he remembered bumping into Sigmund on his way back from the Treasure Trove Gove and

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the ensuing quip between them. The scraggly, but wise old tree seemed to sense where Phil was heading.

“Father Phil, have you ever purchased one of those onesize-fits-all pieces of clothing?” Sigmund asked.

“On occasion, yes, I believe I have.”

“It never really fit, did it?”

Phil realized as his plane lifted off the ground his quest had been quenched.

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33

Acts Our Angels Be Once a leaf is unraveled, it cannot go back to the bud—nor does it want to. It knows there is only one thing it can do to survive and that is to live and fulfill its purpose.

Phil returned to his college office a new man. There was a lightness in his walk that incorporated a type of skip, which garnered teasing from his colleagues. The quest freed up in him a new type of energy—easy going, but determined. His god had grown wider than Phil ever knew possible. He loved his faith even more, for now he saw it in a relationship with all others. Phil felt driven to a purpose, one that clearly realized that a teacher who is no longer learning has surgically removed the heart of his own profession. So as a teacher, Phil equally became a pupil in a new class he called “The Spirit of Goodness/What’s Your Recipe?” Hundreds of kids signed up for it. Within a year, it was the most sought after class on campus.

With Puppy at his side as an example, Phil used the same opening line for every class. “Along with you, I am a student for the simple reason that I have finally learned that whenever I insisted I was absolutely right, it only later proved how wrong I was. I know I’m right about this.”

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When the laughter died down, Phil outlined the class. “I want you to go on a heartfelt quest and share with me and everybody here just what the title of this class asks of you. What is the ideal within you that gives energy and meaning to your life? It is difficult for us to see that others have reached the same level of the heart’s goodness by different means than our own. But, within this difficulty of understanding, there may lay some answers we have not expected. If so, take what you need and leave the rest.”

Phil created a thirst for the quest by launching into a description of his own. Point-by-point in a no-holds-barred account, Phil laid all his flaws, doubts, and insecurities flat out on the table. The class was stunned that a priest would so openly admit such faults. Phil then detailed the joys and revelations his own quest had provided and relieved him of those shortcomings.

“But that is my answer,” Phil said in summation. Now I want to know yours. Whether principles, god, philosophy, none of the above, or something else—share with us what it is that guides you to purposeful lives chocked with challenges and speckled with joy. What is it within that allows you to rise above the ashes of adversity? This is not a class for the faint-hearted. You can’t cut through the jungle to your own truths with a dull effort. Raw honesty and respect are imperative. How your ideal helps you through your troubles and ignites your joys is expected. Nothing is right and nothing is wrong other than it is right or wrong for you. This class is ‘The Spirit of Goodnes/What’s Your Recipe?’ Get cooking.”

Then, after this address on each first day, Phil purposely exited the room quickly, leaving the class in abject silence pondering the task before them.

A tree doesn’t eat its own apples. Its job is merely to produce them.

—Treeverb

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Whether it was Judith, Muhammad or Chan, each student slowly stepped up to share their ideal. At that point, Phil noticed many faces of skepticism. But, the instant the students spoke in detail of their personal troubles and joys—and how their ideal helped them overcome one and nourish the other— the stark honesty of it melted any icy cynicism into raindrops.

Judith talked of a sister suffering a terminal illness. Muhammad spoke of a lost father. Chan expressed his dire loneliness and his far-away family.

Despite the differences in their ideals, the heart-felt exchanges spurred an interaction that had students crisscrossing each other’s paths in efforts to discover some stronger center to their own spirit of goodness. Soon, many were exchanging rites and rituals. An atheist shared his ethics on tolerance to a Christian. A Buddhist demonstrated his meditation practices for stilling the mind, and a Jewish student reciprocated and shared the ritual of his upcoming wedding. And, on and on it went between astrologist and scientist and creeds of every nature, all immersed in this inexplicable synchronization of hope and joy. Different, but the same. Within the class, Phil saw his own quest redeveloping before his eyes. Every time students pointed out in amazement a common denominator among all the differing beliefs, Phil simply smiled.

Their detection that their differences somehow met at a crossroads in the human heart always tweaked Phil’s own heart, sending a giddy tremble down to the mark of goodness on his ankle. On the last day of his tenth consecutive class, Phil reached into his pockets for his diamond seeds of growth.

They were gone. Phil immediately realized they sat before him as fellow students in the classroom. “Before me sits US in all Shis splendor,” Phil said in dismissing his class, then in memory listened for hours to the peaceful symphony of their pleasant chatter. ‡

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Songbirds The following summer while Phil sat in his office listening to songbirds chirping from the trees outside his window, he jotted down a note to himself:

Within the song of life, harmony does not come by everybody playing the same note. If we did, there would be no harmony. That’s the paradox we so much misunderstand. In life, as in music, to harmonize each must play a different note, but know it is being played within a similar theme or melody. Through this process we discover each is agreeing with us in harmony by being different because that’s what harmony requires.

SING, S O N G B I R D S SING!

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34

Conspiracy Theory When life looks like a conspiracy against Me, looking at it from a different angle may very well prove it to be a conspiracy for US. —Wisdom from a willow Cindy became accustomed to top-shelf and new as she sat admiring the paintings and books in the office of her new, larger mansion. The beginnings to a new chapter of Sea and the Tree sat on her desk.

Shoving Off We seek the wind of discovery. We cannot buy it. We can use it, but not grasp it. So it comes and goes –its power used or left undisturbed. But all is to no avail unless one first is willing to shove off from the security of the dock….

Not knowing why, she winced when writing it. Cindy was a “heap” thinker. She was either on the top of it or the bottom.

No middle ground. This made her a prisoner of comparisons, who never escapes the cell. Enough was never enough. Something was always missing. The very freedom she sought was anchored at the dock, halted by the fear of losing what her

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grind to the top of the heap had granted. An increasing cowardice of this freedom deepened with every dollar she had to guard. Though the grinding toward her wealth ground Cindy down, she was still convinced of what she needed—more of the same that kept her firmly tied to the dock.

That missing tangible item remained—a T. Tripis painting, a fortune in its own right. Cindy became obsessed with obtaining one. When she failed to skirt the lottery system, she focused on finding T. Tripis herself. Her every effort thwarted, Cindy likened it to a conspiracy. Even when she asked Dan Pauish to help her, he seemed standoffish and somehow strangely protective of the artist. It didn’t make any sense.

Then Cindy remembered the priest who wrote articles about symbols on the T. Tripis paintings. When she made the call, Brad answered Phil’s phone.

“I would like a meeting with the artist,” Cindy stated.

“She’s probably heard of me. I’m fairly well known.”

“That’s up to the artist,” Brad said. “It would all have to be hush, hush.”

“No problem.”

“Then I’ll ask her and get back to you.” Brad did so quickly. Cindy was ecstatic that Trisha knew of Nature’s Judge. Trisha was a fan of Cindy’s book, but remembered while reading it, there seemed as though it lacked something. Trisha couldn’t put her finger on it, but it made her curious enough to grant a visit. Trisha’s address shocked Cindy when she received it.

It sat in the same forest where Mather resided. The awareness created a knot in Cindy stomach—a feeling as though she had missed something.

“What did I miss?” Cindy asked Denel as he whizzed by her office. “What did I miss in the forest?”

Denel listed his experiences one-by-one. When he came to the Treasure Trove Grove, Cindy stopped him, but the importance of it escaped her.

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Backtracking Nobody enters a forest without doing it.

—Treeverb

Formality met informality when Trisha opened the door to greet Cindy. In refined formal garb, without a hair out of place, Cindy stood stylishly stiff, yet wobbly as the point of her high-heals strained for balanced in the weaving of the rubber doormat. An enigma stared back at her. Trisha had merely wrapped a paint-stained smock over her rabbit-tailed, bunny-footed pajamas. An oversized baseball cap sat cock-eyed on Trisha’s head shading her tiny face and covering a rat’s nest of hair. The stark differences ignited a palpable pause before Trisha welcomed Cindy into her cabin.

Cindy felt uneasy and fumbled her way into an awkward conversation. She told Trisha she had passed this cabin years ago and had heard screaming and yelling.

“What was that all about?” Cindy asked brashly as if she deserved an answer. Trisha ignored Cindy’s rudeness and honestly thought back to the troubled time with John.

“A little bump in the road,” Trisha said with a smile. Trisha perceived Cindy’s lack of ease hiding behind formality—a type of inability to be personable from a person who just got personal. Then it hit her. What was missing? The human touch. Both in her book and her person. Trisha’s kind instincts kicked in immediately to set Cindy at ease.

“Let me put on a pot of coffee and then we’ll chat.” In Trisha’s absence Cindy scanned the dinginess of the cabin. It confused her.

“What’s on your mind,” Trisha asked upon return.

“I don’t understand.” Cindy snapped. “You’re a world-renowned artist, yet you dress like a slob and live in a dump. I don’t get it. Why do you live like this?”

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“This is all I can afford. My life is neither comedy nor tragedy, though both elements are probably intertwined. I simply live simply. All I need I have now—a determined purpose and as comfortable a place as I need to enact it. Is there something more I could wish for?”

The answer baffled Cindy and the frustration began unraveling her formal exterior. “Yes!” Cindy said in exasperation. “You could be worth millions, yet you live on peanuts.

You are famous, yet nobody knows exactly who you are. The whole thought of it drives me nuts,” Cindy moaned as she stomped her high heel on the carpet with a clunk. “I don’t get it!”

“Well, let me help you understand,” Trisha said gently as she eased her back softly into the rag-tag sofa cushion. “I have no problems having my work become an example of the Spirit of Goodness, but have no wish to become that personally for anybody else. I try as well as I can to enact my good without a footprint so as not to distract from the true spirit from where it comes. It is part of who I am and part of who I am not— those two things in cooperation. Can you understand that?”

“Not even vaguely.”

“My feeling is that explanation is not the reason you’re here. You’re missing something. What is it?”

“Your paintings. I can’t get my hands on one.” Trisha rose from the sofa and disappeared into her studio.

“Here,” Trisha said as she handed The Meeting Place painting to Cindy as if it was nothing more than a day-old cookie.

“It’s the only one I’ve kept and it’s yours.”

“But, this is your first painting. It’s worth millions,” Cindy gasped. “I can’t take it for nothing.”

“Nothing is worth nothing,” Trisha explained. “All I ask is that if in your life you meet somebody who needs it more than you, give it to them.”

Cindy coyly smiled a dismal assuring ‘yes’ as she received a light hug that sent shivers down her spine. Her host felt it

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and understood.

“Feel free to take a look around the forest before you leave,” Trisha said as she slowly closed the door.

Concerning the important things, usually what we thought was missing was always there. —Sign on a tree near the Lost and Found Dept. in Yosemite Park

After Cindy locked the painting securely in her trunk, the stark differences between Trisha and herself nagged at her as she trudged to the Treasure Trove Grove. Then, Gracey’s entrance question sharply pierced Cindy’s ego about what part she played in the night and day comparison with Trisha. The Charity Tree hugged her first with great vigor and kindness.

“Just when we think we have arrived,” he said warmly, “the spirit within US always asks us to grow another inch.”

Then, one at a time, she met them all, realizing along the way the treasures these trees embodied were not of the same markings of the riches she craved. In time, it found her blushing in embarrassment before the Nobody Tree. Cindy stared at Nobody as it changed its form according to her perception.

In him, she saw a type of dirt-poor nobility—a sparkle in the diamond of simplicity. Cindy instantly softened.

“I thought I was really something,” Cindy whimpered.

“We only think that when we truly doubt it,” Nobody said gently.

“Then what do I—where do I go from here?”

“Help is in the wind of discovery—a willingness to shove off from the security of the dock. To quote a phrase, ‘it’s power used or left undisturbed—” “—How do you know my words?” Cindy cried in shock when Nobody quoted from her book.

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“They’re exposed upon your heart. Though you wrote them, you neither understand nor practice their tenets.” Nobody became silent and simply dropped a pine needle leaflet in Cindy’s pocket as she laid down in slumber on his trunk...

Nobody’s Pine Leaflet Dissatisfied with the natural growth of his species’ life cycle, a young balsam pine named Prickly decided he would make his mark by being taller than any others that surrounding him. But, being young and a little wobbly, he needed some extra security to make it happen. So Prickly wrapped his branches around the trunks of every small clump of scrub oak surrounding him in all directions.

“They’ll never amount to anything,” Prickly thought.

“Tent stakes. They’ll support my rise to fame.”

He then sucked in more nourishment from the soil than he could ever use and began his rise. At first, it was phenomenal.

But, when he reached a point only a short distance above his brothers and sisters, the very limbs he had wrapped around them suddenly stopped Prickly’s growth. The grip was so tight, he could not untangle himself.

All Prickly’s brothers and sisters found it amusing as they grew beyond the pompous pine. As his friends grew, Prickly had less sunlight. Prickly began to weaken. A few years passed when a mere, slight wind cracked Prickly at his trunk. With his branches still attached to his neighbors, he did not fall to the ground. Prickly dangled sideways swaying on the whims of the wind as a lesson for all to see—a puppet on strings dancing aimlessly, enslaved by the very false chains of security into which he had locked himself. ‡

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Cindy awoke and discovered seeds in her pocket shaped like children. She had no idea what they meant. When she looked around, Nobody was gone. All she saw before her was a large and beautifully tapered Blue Spruce, whose appearance held her in awe. It reminded her of Mather. He was close. She would pay him a visit. Cindy stopped suddenly while exiting the grove. A thought tinged her mind with the first speck of change: Who could it possibly be that would need the painting more than me?

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Education of Rusty Rootless Day Eleven

The Will of Power A tree’s willpower to grow is in exact harmony with the seed that created it. —Treeverb

With the juvenile camp renovations completed, Rusty again dangled his hands and feet in the Stream of Goodness. As he swirled his hand through the water he noticed two marks appear in the center of his right thumb. One looked like a pen.

The other resembled a hammer. Before he could grasp their meaning, he startled at the sound of nearby footsteps and instinctively looked through the twigs of a bush that separated him from Mather’s stump.

With high heels in hand, Cindy emerged from the forest and headed for what was left of Mather. She dropped to her knees in anguish and wailed when she saw Mather’s stump.

It hurt Rusty’s heart to see it. He had done the same. After a moment, Cindy’s sorrow turned to anger as she pounded her fist on the stump.

“I promise you Mather,” she screamed, “if I ever find out

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who did this to you, I will kill him.” Then, a finger of her pounding hand slid across Mather’s final ring. Though he could not hear it, Rusty knew it was speaking to her as it had to him: My dear Cin-tree, I will hold you in my arms again.

Cindy did not know what it meant, but somehow it comforted her. Dismissing all her formality, Cindy took a deep breath, stripped off her clothes, and waded into the Stream.

Rusty watched, not as a voyeur, but out of concern. The stream seemed to rejuvenate her mood. As Cindy stepped from the water she inspected herself for a Mark of Goodness. There was none. She dressed slowly into her now thoroughly soaked formal clothes and looked at herself in the water’s reflection.

What stared back was a frumpy disheveled slob. It made her laugh. Cindy leaned down and gently kissed what remained of Mather’s Mark of Goodness. Then she was gone.

Rusty thought back to his own shock of seeing Mather gone when he had returned to the camp. It weakened him. The Ringmaster noticed and guided the boy’s finger to Mather’s final message for him. No greater joy did this life grant me than you. Now you stand in the center of your potential. Act. Thank you my son, now and forever. Rusty noticed the sprout now growing on Mather’s stump wiggle in glee.

“You have some pretty big shoes to fill,” Rusty said with a tear.

“It is a challenge to which I will give my best,” shot back the sprout. “I learned it all from Mather’s final speech to the forest.”

Curious, Rusty pieced together the speech from several trees and wrote it in his notebook. He circled his favorite line: “…If I said and did love and no one listened nor was it noted, all the better for I have said and done what love demands…”

It was classic Mather right up to the end: “In this felling I am not falling for I am standing up for life—just in a different manner than before. Goodbye my friends. I am off to distant shores.”

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Rusty realized Mather’s goodness would never die. Every tree in the forest possessed a piece of it. Mather had passed it on right up to his own passing.

Re-rooting Rootless Apples and Oranges: what a tree does is governed by the nature of its spirit.

—Tree-ta-tude

The forest needed someone to take on Mather’s duties. A quorum of trees appointed Oak A. Coral, a large bustling oak who was so named due to the fiber of his bark resembling the texture of sea coral. Initially, Rusty was reluctant to sit beneath Coral for he was of a different nature than Mather.

“What purpose do you serve?” Rusty asked skeptically.

“I am where good meets evil and good gets going.”

“I don’t know where my good is going,” Rusty stated honestly. “Don’t feel like I’m growing.”

Coral told Rusty to go sit by a nearby tree and stare at it.

“Are you there?”

“Yes,” Rusty said.

“Good. Now tell me when it’s growing.”

Rusty got the point. “So, where do I go from here?”

“That’s everybody’s question, ain’t it?” Coral chuckled.

“So is the answer: ‘Keep coming back.’”

“To what?

“To the Spirit of Goodness that created you.”

“But, I’m not sure I have anything to offer.”

“You have Ashpuur’s love,” Coral snipped. “Offer it.”

Rusty realized he had not been connecting with Ashpuur on a constant basis. He quickly reconnected.

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‡ “Welcome back,” Ashpuur said. “Where have you been?”

“Off on my own,” Rusty lamented.

“How’s that going?”

“I’ve hit a rut.”

“Know that I have given you things only when you could understand them. Thanks for your patience,” Ashpuur said gracefully. “To have granted them beforehand would have found you unprepared for them. Now is your time for purpose.”

Ashpuur’s voice faded as a warmth oozed from Rusty’s heart down to his right hand. Rusty looked down at the two marks near his thumb. He clutched his notes and thought of the ones he had given to Cindy. That explained the pen mark, and he was in the middle of that purpose. But, what about the hammer? He thought back to a remark Mather had made to him: “We plant the seeds of our own goodness.”

“And sometimes we do it,” Coral chimed in, “with the very same tool previously used for evil.”

“The hammer!” Rusty shouted. The instrument of Ian Casder’s death. It had torn a good man down. But it had been made to build things up. Rusty’s good got going.

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36

The Plan

Whether it is obvious or not, no matter how or what a tree looks like, behind every piece of its design is a strategy—a reason.—Treeverb

“Brad, are you still interested in being part of a plan I have for my paintings?” Trisha asked without formalities in an out-of-nowhere phone call.

“Maybe,” Brad mumbled while searching his memory. He had not talked to Trisha in over two years.

“Well, the plan is ready. I’m sending you a letter explaining how to implement it. Dan Pauish, my art dealer, knows about it and can help you. I’ve got a feeling Father Phil will also be interested.” ‡ Dear Brad, The spark of life is no different than the flash of inspiration in a masterpiece—it is comprised of hundreds of different brush strokes. This concept is the very point of my plan—my ultimate masterpiece. Each of my paintings are one-foot by one-foot squares for a reason. Excluding my first painting, “The Meet-

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ing Place,” I have painted 841 paintings in all. They have been sold at lottery and are now scattered throughout the world. If placed in the right sequence, all 841 paintings will fit exactly into the 29x29-foot square frame you saw in my studio. I will send you the frame. You and Dan Pauish—if you agree—will be in charge of publishing the plan and devising a system for getting all the paintings back. It won’t be easy. If and when you get all the paintings returned, line them up within the frame according to the codes given on the corner of each picture. I will then send you a 29x29-foot piece of electrical translucent paper that can be fitted over the paintings. It is known as ASHE paper and will be hooked up to a preprogrammed computer, which is hard-wired into the picture frame. Once the program is turned on, it cannot be turned off. The instant the program is on, all of the pictures within the frame will slowly transform into one new larger picture filling the frame—that picture is my final and ultimate masterpiece.

People will have exactly three minutes in which to see it.

After that, the ASHE paper will self-destruct, burning up and destroying all the paintings behind it. That must be allowed to happen to make the final masterpiece’s crucial point. There are sticklers in the plan. All my paintings must be lined up in exactly the right sequence within the frame or the overall picture of the final masterpiece on the ASHE paper will not be properly constructed. Either way, in three minutes all will be destroyed.

I think Father Phil can divine the sequence if he gives it some thought. I gave him a hint of it when you visited.

The hardest problem you’ll encounter will be to get people who own my paintings to hand them over for this project with no strings attached. All the paintings must be there or the program won’t work. Is each owner willing to give up his or her million-dollar-plus painting to see the final masterpiece? I don’t know, but I have faith they will.

The only other stipulation to the plan is my first painting—“The Meeting Place.” Although, it will not be used in

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the frame and will be the only remaining painting once the presentation is over, it must be there on an easel when the exhibition takes place. That is an absolute requirement. I gave it to somebody who thought she needed it for the wrong reasons.

I’m interested if she’ll be willing to part with it. That’s all. Let me know what you think.

Good luck, Trisha Tripis ‡ Brad anxiously grabbed for the phone when he finished the letter.

“With all due respect Trisha, are you nuts? There’s nearly a billion dollars worth of paintings here.”

“Brad. Do you remember the large painting of the hands that I meditated on?”

“Yes,” Brad said as he focused sharply on Trisha’s every word.

“In Michelangelo’s whole view of this painting, Adam is alive but not alive. Though breathing, he is waiting for the transfer of the spark of life. He’s waiting for hope. That’s the whole point of the paintings—that the waiting is unnecessary.

Are we willing to give up something worldly for something greater? I don’t know, but let’s find out. I hate to put it so bluntly, Brad, but either you’re in or you’re out.”

“Wow!” Brad said. “I’m in.”

Backlash All a tree is in the beginning is a seed—a good idea that the soil of life tramples on to see if it is serious. —Treeverb

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News of Trisha’s plan hit the world with gale force. News agencies pounced on it with frenzied headlines: Spirit’s Artist Wants Work to Go Up In Smoke

New York Times “Did the artist fall off her easel and bump her head?...Craftiness or craziness?...Masterpieces under the the match-stick...serious business, folks—serious money...”

London Times “It’s an interesting plan though, isn’t it?

Each person holds one piece to a larger whole but cannot know it unless he gives up his piece for a substantial sum...What a thriller!”

CNN “The question has to be asked: is this fair or foul play? Neither, says Denel Nieght, the first man to come forward to give up his painting to the plan. Mr. Nieght...”

Though Cindy never let Denel in on her own secret possession, she felt betrayed by the news that he owned a T. Tripis painting and kept it hidden from her.

“Why in the world would you just give it away,” she demanded from him. Denel simply said it was “the right thing to do.” Cindy tried to call Trisha numerous times, but Trisha

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did not return her calls. The discord between Cindy and Denel was but a fraction of the friction over the plan that erupted throughout the world. People took sides in a global bar fight, flinging bitter contentions back and forth in a media melee.

Senator Astan Prince furiously fanned the opposition’s fire. The Massachusetts Governor had appointed the slick and cagey Prince to a mid-term vacancy in the House of Representatives. Where he had come from, nobody knew. Nobody seemed to care. With only one year in office, Representative Prince cherry-picked Trisha’s Plan as a rallying point for patriots. In the process, he parlayed the house post into a Senate seat. Then, the honorable Senator Prince sprang head first into tearing the fabric of Trisha’s plan apart at its seams. Talk shows were his mainstay.

“Our country was founded upon capitalist principles,” Senator Prince touted. “Our citizens work hard for what they have. Now we have somebody telling us we should be ashamed of that and give it away.”

“So, you’re saying the artist’s plan is anti-American?” the moderator asked.

“At its most deceitful level,” Prince fired back.

Occasionally, Trisha sat in her studio watching Prince on his television rampage. Not once did she flinch or come forward to defend herself. She remained anonymous. The plan would stand on its own. Though Trisha and John were no longer an item, they talked frequently with one another about all the hubbub. Both noticed that the great Senator Prince in all his harshness had a very soft underbelly. He was sensitive to criticism. Trisha and John saw him visibly wince when somebody took him head on. Whoever did it got summarily stung.

Prince was King at character assassination.

Though Senator Prince sliced the country down the middle with his sword of divisiveness, his effort had its own opposition. A warm and moderate-toned generosity slowly began to fathom the plan’s depth and raise it to the surface. Slowly,

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the paintings began to trickle in. In Times Square and other prominent places around the world, tabs were openly kept on how many paintings had been handed over to the plan. The present count: Paintings in the Plan….......................356 Still Outstanding………...485 (plus one) Each time the media reported the delivery of another painting to the plan, Denel, and many like him throughout the country, jumped in joy. Each time, Prince quickly countered.

“Just another peg in the beginning of the end of the American way of life.”

Con-tree-dictions Sometimes the purest of answers is imbedded in the dirtiest of soils. —Quote from Sid the Seed

Phil felt the burden of having to come up with the painting sequence. He did not shrink from it, but honestly stated his concerns to Trisha on the phone.

“Why put such faith in me? It’s your total life’s work. I make one mistake and its up in flames.”

With calming reassurance, Trisha related what Elmbert Pinestein had told her years ago. “It’s the little things we do that count; the little things are nothing more than a process of getting ourselves into a position to be made aware of something greater. It’s bigger than the both of us, Phil. Please, give it a go.”

That’s all Phil needed to hear. Again, Phil had Brad run the paintings’ corner symbols through Vanna RI. Again, no

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matter how Brad entered them as a collective unit, Vanna still came up with the same answer: “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Undaunted, Phil concentrated on his own research of the symbols. In months of study, he had deciphered only one corner.

There were two symbols on it. One was the coat of arms for a 15-th century family in Walachia, a province in what was then Transylvania. The other symbol was a head on a stick. The two symbols combined could only mean one thing: Vlad the Impaler or Dracula, the actual vile character author Bram Stoker had fictionalized in his novel.

Phil knew Vlad the Impaler’s legend in history. He had been a monster. He killed and tortured thousands of people solely in his quest for power and to satisfy his insatiable delight in seeing others suffer. In 1476, one report states, he paid for it with his own head on a stick. Phil had deciphered the symbol, but what it meant in the overall sequence of the paintings escaped him. Phil felt the pressure as he walked out on the campus lawn and looked at the sign the college erected to keep tabs on the relinquished paintings.

Paintings in the Plan….......................498 Still Outstanding………...343(plus one) The answer did not come to Phil until one night four months later when he invited Brad for a soda at a local college pub. Students sat around dissecting the world’s situation as students do. Phil and Brad eavesdropped, smiling on occasion at their conclusions. A television newscast blared on a shelf above the bar, reporting a catastrophe: “The death count in the Rwanda genocide now stands at one million murdered souls.”

A student at an adjoining table followed the news story to its end and then turned to his classmates.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” the young student said sadly.

The comment hit Phil with such force he choked on his drink and showered Brad’s pretzels with spray.

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“That’s it! That’s what Vanna RI was trying to tell us all along,” Phil said excitedly, yanking Brad off his bar stool.

“We put all the symbols in together. That was our mistake,” Phil told Brad when they returned to the college. “Put each of these symbols in one at a time.”

As Brad fed each symbol singularly into Vanna RI, out popped a printout of a ghastly and hideous event in history with all its details. From the wholesale murders in Darfur to the Rwandan Genocide. From the Khmer Rouge Cambodia Killing Fields to the Nazi Holocaust. From the Great Purge in Russia to the genocide of indigenous populations in America.

Back in history it went, one-by-one. Back to the beginning of recorded history. When the last symbol was fed for decoding, there before Brad and Phil lay individual details of 3,364 inhumane historical atrocities—one for each corner of the 841 paintings. Both men stood stunned before the pile.

“I know I’m the computer guy,” Brad said, “but why do you think Vanna required the symbols one by one to give us an answer?”

“Intelligence,” Phil said. “We had to seek the heart of it.

She did not want us to see all of this as a collective unit, but one by one. Only then—and maybe not even then—do we see the intensity of individual suffering.”

“Easy to heap things together,” Brad noted sadly. “Grim as it may be, one by one sort of puts a face on it.”

“We heap things together to diminish their importance.

We separate them to find it.” Phil said while slowly fingering through the pile. “Vanna’s answer was correct.”

Senator Prince pounced on the paintings’ symbols for his own purposes as soon as their meaning hit the news. “It’s nothing less than devil worship,” he bellowed. “It’s easy to look at nothing but the bad things. This just goes to show how evil this plan is.”

For quite some time, his remarks slowed the return of the paintings, but it did not stop Phil’s persistency in trying to

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decipher the right sequencing for the paintings. The answer to the symbols was actually very simple in design—like reading a book. That very notion put Phil on the right track to align the paintings.

Phil dated the event that each symbol represented, then began to place their reprints side by side in a mockup of the 29x29-foot frame. He started with the most recent event and inched his way back into history with the date of each event being the guide. When he had the first top line filled across the frame the events read just like a book—left to right. When he reached the end of the top right corner, the exact event which was next in chronological order appeared on the bottom side of the left corner, then continued on again in exact sequence toward the right. It was a book—and a very ghastly one at that. Phil felt himself being seduced by Senator Prince’s warnings. He wondered whether this really could be part of an evil plan. It was depressing, and troubled him until he compared the two principal characters in the plan. Trisha lived simply and peacefully in her anonymity. Prince was public and bellicose, always at war with somebody. The answer to Phil was obvious.

Phil was confident in his decisions until the day he realized the dates on the paintings could be flip-flopped. The frame could be turned upside down and the events that happened first in history would be first in the line up. That spiraled Phil’s sound assurance into a nervous insecurity.

“Trisha told me she had given you a hint when we first met her,” Brad said.

“What hint?”

“I don’t know. Something strange in the conversation.

Something that didn’t fit then but somehow must fit now.”

Phil agonized, scanning his memory for days. Nothing. Then he reached for the phone.

“Trisha—point blank—it’s rattling my cage that if I screw this up, I’m going to come out looking like the biggest jackass

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in the history of the world.”

“I’ll be right there with you, Phil.”

“Anonymously, of course and the title on the jackass will still be named Phil. I’d have to live with that.”

“Could you?” Trisha asked. Phil did not answer as Trisha sensed the dilemma crushing down on a trusted friend. “Phil,” she continued, “do you remember what I said when you asked where I came from?”

“All I’m asking for is a little hint,” Phil pleaded.

“I’m giving it to you, Phil. Listen! Do you remember what I said when you asked where I came from?” Phil fell silent for a moment.

“Is your father’s real name Matthew?” Phil asked slyly.

“No.” “Ha, gotcha!” Phil screamed and Trisha hung up the phone with a smile. Phil leaned back in his chair and remembered Trisha’s exact hint: My mother met my father Matthew back in 1930. At first they didn’t know if it would last. “Matthew, Chapter 19—Verse 30,” Phil said out loud to himself as he reached for his bible and read the tail-end portion of the verse: “…the first will be last and the last first.” Phil had his answer as he walked across campus to his “Recipe” class and glanced with a grin at the latest tally on the paintings: Paintings in the Plan….......................641 Still Outstanding………...200 (plus one)

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37

Education of Rusty Rootless Day Twelve

Rusty Isn’t Rusty Anymore O to confront night storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do…Dear Camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge you, without the least idea what is our destination.

Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell’d and defeated. —Quote from “Leaves of Trees,”—a famous forest poem by Walter Whittletree

Mawokind was not made to be willy-nilly, nor was Artus Norber. Like so many that had undertaken this journey before him, Artus entered the stream of his own goodness by simply ceasing for a moment to consider his own wants. The easier, softer way was no longer his chosen path. Disregarding both difficulty and distance, he saw a star and reached for it. In this reaching, he grasped a shaft of light firm enough to illuminate the portrait of his own ideal, then slowly yielded to it. Within

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this doing, the ideal became real. Because of it, his work was hard, his joy pure, and his life—a gleaming stream of stardust.

The forest is not here for you to impress.

Quite the opposite is true. —Sign on a bronze plaque near a Blue Spruce in the Ian Casder Forest Reserve Two weeks before the dedication ceremony for the Ian Casder Forest Reserve, John and his son walked through the throng of trees adjacent to the Juvenile Forestry Camp. They noted what both had accomplished over the past two years.

Rusty, who now proudly went by his given name, Artus Norber, reveled in merriment yet his words could not explain his dream come true.

With his father’s help, Artus took the hammer and built something up. He planned out and built scores of shelter houses, campsites and picnic tables that lured people and families into the wonders of the forest.

“People don’t just want to see the forest’s beauty,” he told John. “They want to unite with it.” Artus built comfortable places for meditation and contemplation. He brushed out paths and trails, leading to items of discovery as the Heaven’s Tree, then erected bronze plaques near the tree which explained what it was and how it grew, using treeverbs and treetales the forest had given him in his journey. The area became known as the “Forest of Parables.” Artus used Mather’s own words on the plaque near his stump: When I was here I thought of myself as a connection between heaven and earth. Now that I’m not, I still do.

Artus had thought about making a path to the Treasure Trove Grove, but decided against it. That was one place he

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thought that should take some huffing and puffing to get to, and so it remained a difficult spot to reach. As father and son pressed onward, Artus realized what the venture had taught him.

A year into the project, Artus began building a bridge over Brehmer Creek. He designed it as a crescent moon over the stream—a type of a bump in the road, but also a crossing. It reminded him of his relationship to Ashpuur. He needed to walk over the bridge only once to secure his sense of goodness, but needed to walk back and forth over it continuously to give it exercise and improve upon it.

Cindy visited during the bridge building to get the final notes for the boy’s book. At first, Artus did not recognize her.

She wore tennis shoes, blue jeans and a raggedy t-shirt tied at the front exposing her belly button. Cindy had always been fair with Artus, but now she seemed more relaxed and casual—more human. Cindy couldn’t contain her excitement over Artus’ project.

“Good things will come of your kindness here.” Then Cindy’s tone changed as Artus passed her his notes. “Can I admit something to you, young man?”

“Of course,” Artus said.

“Your writing taught me about something I was missing.

It touched my heart in a place that needed healing. I will be forever grateful.”

“And, I to you,” Artus said as he embraced her hand. The touch nearly brought Cindy to tears as she struggled to speak the good news.

“Your book will be published within a short time. Once it is, you’re a free man. I’m commuting your sentence. Thanks for all you’ve done for me.”

With that Cindy gave Artus a hug and chuckled as she passed the plaque next to Oak A. Coral while leaving the reserve:

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Oaks don’t produce acorns until after they are fifty. ‘Slow and steady’ is our motto. But we have a 200-year lifespan. If you don’t and have the slow part down, work on the other part.

When Cindy left, Artus wondered why it was that people who have helped us the most always thank us for what we’ve done for them. How strange. He felt elated about his upcoming freedom, but realized that although he was still locked up, he was already free.

Circumstances don’t need a victim unless we give them one. —Sign on a plaque by the two trees that grew together over Brehmer Creek Artus’ project hit a shaky start when he began recruiting fellow inmates to help. The warden’s secretary, Emanda Gord, immediately transferred Dan Dormage to the camp through the hushed help of a Massachusetts’ Senator.

“Remember the courtroom? Dead meat!” the co-culprit in Ian Casder’s death grunted to Artus at their first meeting.

Dormage began systematically vandalizing every effort toward progress in the project. At the same time, Ms. Gord heaped every rotten chore she could dream of on Artus’ head. Gord’s fiery eyes of madness glared straight through him when Artus confronted her.

“Your ass is mine, young man.”

“No matter what you do,” Artus said unafraid, “Not now.

Not ever. Not under any circumstances.” Artus then went straight to the community-minded warden, who demoted Gord for her cruelty and summarily locked Dormage in an isolated, dark cell until he began screaming in fear from the loneliness. His condition for release? Help with the project. A

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peculiar thing happened when he did. He softened. Over time, the stardust of goodness that was Artus started to penetrate Dormage, who before had always bullied anyone who did not call him by his last name. Slowly Dormage became Dan. Then he became friend. And finally, Dan was the best helper Artus had on the project. It enraged Emanda Gord to see it.

US takes a chance on us, but it does very little good unless we assume a few risks ourselves.

—Plaque next to St. Treemas From this point on there was no fight and no flight in Artus’ actions—just purpose as natural as a flower in a weed field that could be nothing other than what it was. Word spread quickly about the project. Local people kindly donated materials and help. Then they flocked to the forest to partake of Artus’ handiwork. The forest was large enough to absorb them all—big enough to grant fellowship to those who wanted it and solitude for those who needed it. Families began inviting Artus to their picnics. He took them on guided tours. They warmly thanked him and included him into the affectionate huddles of their families. Rusty received what he had given—a welcome into the heart of things. Early on, Artus recognized this was no longer his project, but a project of “US.” As John and Artus ended their tour of the completed project, Artus caught a glimpse of two mother raccoons with their babies in the brush. All had the bright white stripe on their right front shoulder. They were his raccoons. They too had suffered, survived, and thrived. Artus turned to his father.

“You know, at first all this seemed like some insane experience devised to tear me into shreds. Yet, now having lived through it, I realize it was designed to weave all my shredded pieces back together. I guess that’s life.”

“So it is,” John said as they passed the final plaque near the forest reserve’s exit. It sat next to a midsized elm. Though

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the tree had been knocked a little off kilter in a storm, it still bristled with life as it grew towards the sky. Its plaque was the only one Artus himself had signed: The Spirit of Goodness asked me to honor and hold sacred something within Shis creation. I chose the tree and it chose me. What will it be for you?

—Artus Norber

Sarah. Sarah!

Sarah, the vibrant little girl who through her youth had frequented the teaching forest in her father’s arms was now old enough to traverse the trees alone. Trisha became fascinated with this delightful young lady. Their paths had crossed many times in forest walks, always resulting in riveting discussion about the infinite creative force between art and nature.

Every time they met, the enchanting youth’s name pounded in Trisha’s heart and head. Sarah. Sarah! Sarah! Intrigue by the constant throbbing, Trisha researched the name. In one form or another, it appears in every culture’s language from Arabic to Chinese. In many cases it could be deciphered as meaning Princess of the Dawn. The throbbing continued upon every encounter. Sarah. Sarah! Trisha slowly sensed a deepfelt notion that the recurring pulse of this name would have something new to do with her final masterpiece, but she did not know what. Sarah! Princess of the Dawn.

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38

Life vs Grief

It’s easy to tell who has won this battle.

Life is a lifetime occupation. Grief isn’t. I had to learn that. —Mather’s statement concerning Chad Late on a Sunday night, Emanda Gord cautiously made her way down the row of bunks in the juvenile barracks with a taser in her hand. Its power light blinked and bounced off the drawn shades in the lightless room. When she reached the bunk where Artus slept she aimed and pushed the trigger. The boy’s body jumped from the shock and fell back to the bunk in a listless twitch. In his numbness, Artus felt a rag being shoved into his mouth. Emanda swiftly duct-taped the boy’s quivering limbs to the bunk ends and waited until Artus regained consciousness.

When he did, she glared at Artus, waving a knife before his face.

“Dead meat!” she whispered in the dark. As best he could, Artus began a strong murmured chanting through the rag.

Emanda moved closer to make it out: “Not now. Not ever.

Not under any circumstances.”

Then, Emanda thrust her knife and left as quickly as she came, leaving Artus wincing in muffled pain. Emanda calmly

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cleaned out her desk and slipped into the night. On a bathroom break near dawn, Dan Dormage discovered the carnage.

He tied a pressure bandage on the wound, but saw its futility.

Shaken and covered with blood he lifted Artus’ body off the bunk and headed for the infirmary. His scream echoed through the barracks: “God, what have we done?” ‡ To All Things There Is Finality The beauty of suffering is the link it binds to every human heart. This understanding is not gained in a moment, but in the moment it is fathomed all is gained. —Heralded statement of Mather to the forest.

Weak and dizzy, Artus felt the lifeblood draining from his body as John comforted him at bedside. With hands entwined and gazes locked, both knew death was near. There was no measuring stick for suffering here. John and Artus sensed it equally as they looked into each other’s eyes. In the union of that gaze they found themselves within each other. The struggle was over with only US remaining.

“Get my pants,” Artus said weakly. Without question Dan Dormage darted to the barracks and returned. Artus turned the pockets inside out.

“All my seeds are gone,” the boy whispered with a frail smile. The words tore into John’s heart.

“Tell me son, who did this to you?” Life had not always been delicate to Artus Norber, but he had found his way to be graceful to life.

“Don’t dampen your light, dad. Whoever was behind this, they suffer the same as US.” With those kind words Artus

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Norber took his small step into forever.

Under heaven, all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. Let the river of sorrow flow. Do not dam it up. The crystal clear stream will cleanse the wound...

—Tree-ta-tude Grief gripped John in a death lock. He took to running through the forest screaming in pain and ripping at the red tattered jacket he wore and refused to take it off. Trisha came to his aid and the Ringmaster led John to the 53rd ring on Mather’s stump. Not even Mather’s story of Chad dented John’s anguish.

“Oh, my dear soul why are you so downcast?” St. Treemas said as John approached.

“I wither on the vine in heartache.”

“You’ve lost something.”

“Forever.”

“It is important to learn to lose things into forever for that is where the heart lives,” St. Treemas said. “Will you allow it? That’s why trees give so much and lose so much year after year—that you should see this. The time we’ve had with what is gone is precious. It asks of us not to let the going isolate ourselves from the very essence of what made it so, but to join in it once again.”

John mulled over St. Treemas’ words while standing on the bridge spanning the Stream of Goodness. He glanced up and noticed in the distance a large and stately leaf floating towards him in the stream. It was beautiful. Large purple veins crisscrossed one another on the leaf’s surface in a mysterious and wonderful pattern.

Just as the leaf reached the bridge, it was swept into a water swirl. For a few priceless moments John was able to bask in its beauty as it circled in the whirlpool and glistened in the

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sunlight beneath him. Then just as quickly as it arrived, the leaf broke from the swirl and quickly floated downstream to wherever the current of goodness would take it. John moved to the other side of the bridge to watch the leaf move out of sight.

“Artus,” John whispered and the awareness dented his grief. The Ringmaster came to John’s mind. He remembered it had requested he return when he was ready to hear Mather’s final message to him on the maple’s final ring: “My dearest John, I am not your healer, but only something through which healing has passed. Though now a stump, look at my life. You think I am gone. Ask around. Am I? Your son could not live forever, but the spirit of his goodness does.

You are a part of that. Delight in it and pass it on. So it is that hearts can live forever. Evil’s effort is to destroy more lives than the one it takes. Refuse to allow it. Honoring your son’s life does not mean destroying your own. Will you forever grieve that which was your jewel or hold its purpose tight and share it as your son would want? Tell me the next time you see me. How do you honor him?”

Standing on the bridge again, John ripped off his red tattered jacket and dropped it into the Stream of Goodness as a calming spirit soothed him. That which makes the birds sing in the sunrise showered his stricken heart. John held to its chorus as closely as he could. Artus’ funeral and the dedication of the Ian Casder Forest Reserve had fittingly been combined. The ceremony was scheduled for the following day.

Ceremony of Service A tree literally rises above its sorrow. It continues to grow. We can be sad for as long as we need to be, but know the tears of grief are the branches from which beauty constructs its character.

—Tree-ta-tude

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Thousands arrived early for the dedication of the Ian Casder Forest Reserve. Many wondered but did not know what occupied the group standing in silence by the bridge over Brehmer Creek. Hundreds of young boys stood there. As John slowly scattered his son’s ashes into the Stream of Goodness, Father Phil began the service. “…Artus did not know the future, but he knew he had one if he believed he did. His life taught us that. All of what Artus accomplished stands here before us for all to see. Today, we delight in the lesson of his example and celebrate it within ourselves. That is where his life continues—as an ideal for one and all that no matter what the hardship, the seeds of goodness can spring from the darkest soil. God bless Artus Norber. He was—and remains—a blessing in our lives.” Phil encouraged the boys to celebrate Artus’ life and their own by taking part in the forest reserves’ dedication ceremonies. Ian Casder Jr. acted as the master of ceremonies: “My father would be proud,” Ian began. “This tranquil reserve is what my father was all about. Thank you all for honoring him.”

One by one, Ian invited each of the boys up to the platform to explain what part they had played in the project. The crowd showered the boys with hugs and applause. It was new to them—delightfully new. And here this newness was all because of Ian Casder’s sacrifice. All because of a young boy’s dream. All because of their own.

Cindy took the podium and explained how the project had its roots in the vision of a young boy. A talented young man who took notes on how it came to be—notes which were now a book available for sale. All proceeds would be used to improve upon the project the young man had started.

“He was a great young man,” Cindy told John as she handed him the first edition with its title emblazoned on the cover:

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The Education of Rusty Rootless

By Artus Norber John sat on Mather’s stump as he thumbed through the book, looking first at the dedication: To my father, for whom my love will never leave…

In the first chapter, Artus wrote of the raccoons’ hardships and revival within the forest in comparison to his own. Each sentence was toned with graceful hope and gratitude. Then John flipped to the last page and read Artus’ final words: May your biggest hurt become your smallest problem. May your difficulties be but bounty upon which your foremost gifts will bloom.

And, may the greatest of your joys be the life you live. Thanks for giving of yourself to me, the tree and US….

Inspired by his son’s accomplishments, John began to expand the concept of Artus’ project to other juvenile camps throughout the country. Camp by camp he went, shedding hope within an industry of futilitree. John had found his bliss.

He found the light within himself and turned it to the “on” position permanently. For John, that which made the sun rise and bird sing transformed into a glittering, ever-expanding choir. In this case of life vs. grief, life had won hands down.

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Travels With Ken & Cindy

“In an inexplicable fashion, the shape of a boat is discovered. That is but an awareness of its ideal design.

Then it has to be put together plank by plank. Character is built along these very same lines.”

—Grains of wisdom from a wooden sea vessel

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39

Between Tree and Sea How we describe wealth pretty much defines us.

—Sigmund

The Florida sun slid from under a cloud as Cindy skipped up the Key West Yacht Club steps to give a reading from her newly released book The Sea and the Tree. For the first time in her life, she was free to roam. To where, she did not know, but somewhere, she was sure. The question from an Edward Carpenter poem had plagued her conscience during the entire flight here: “How shall you become beautiful?” The poem’s next line answered as she entered the clubhouse: “You must undo the wrappings, not case yourself in fresh ones…”

Cindy had undone her wrappings with finality. Gone were mansion, cars, and titles—all dissolved into a trust that Denel would manage for who knows what. Freedom!

After the reading, Cindy perused the docks laden with beautiful boats of all description and design. Ken Wiagan banged his head on his boat’s boom when he saw Cindy approaching. Cindy had been to Paula’s funeral, but even after all these years she wasn’t used to seeing one without the other.

She was hesitant to state it and Ken noticed.

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“It’s okay. All is settled as it should be in the heart concerning Paula.”

“What are you doing here?” Cindy asked.

“I know this sounds crazy,” Ken said as he assisted Cindy into the cockpit, “but I’m supposed to be here. Just not sure of the reason yet. And yourself?”

“About the same,” Cindy said.

Both chuckled uneasily at the coincidence. Hours slipped by as the two flew through wonderful memories of their college years and brought each other up to speed on their lives to the present. Both marveled at their past connection to the forest and the mysterious calling both now felt from the sea.

“What a wonderful surprise,” Cindy said in amazement, then looked around at what held her afloat. “What a wonderful boat! Can we take a sail?”

The question ignited a nervous gurgle in Ken’s stomach.

“To tell you the truth, I’m not so hot at it,” Ken said with embarrassment.

“Well, I am,” Cindy said as she untied the dock lines and instructed Ken to kick on the engine. Before long they cleared the harbor’s mouth, raised the sails and Cindy had the boat heeled and pushing 7-1/2 knots through five-foot swells in a stiff breeze. Cindy instantly felt all her youthful sailing skills re-ignite to the ready.

“I saw yellow and blue lines painted on the freeboard all around the boat,” Cindy hollered as the boat smashed through a wave crest, flinging a stiff spray over the bow. “What’s that all about?”

Ken explained the colors of the four life virtues Paula taught him.

“So where are the colors for the other two virtues—white and red?”

“I’m still working on them. Paula was sure I’d find them.

When I do, I’ll paint them next to the others.”

“Well then, by all means take the helm of your own boat,”

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Cindy instructed as the wind kicked up another notch. “I need to go forward to adjust the jib.”

Ken saw the swells rise and balked at the command. “I think I’m a bit too much of a novice to handle it in these conditions,” he stated honestly.

“Nobody can do it for you,” Cindy yelled through the hissing wind. “In sailing we grow into competence as circumstances demand. Assume the post. The jib needs attention,” and she was off hand over fist on the lifelines to the bow of the boat. Ken quickly grasped the helm. Cindy sat balanced and relaxed on the bouncing bow pulpit, looking back to the cockpit with a smile. Ken was feeling for the first time the exhilaration of a small boat trudging its way through a vast and unruly sea. The relentless, banging waves ignited Paula’s last words and pounded as a drum beat in Ken’s head. You must not deny your fate. Remember Wakan Tanka.

In this cryptic mystery of a coincidental meeting, Ken and Cindy began on a combined journey of partnership and sailing.

For anyone who has tried either one seriously, neither is easy.

As evening approached, the wind and sea eased, granting again a more relaxed and introspective tone to their conversation.

Both talked of Paula and the link she had been in their lives.

Each felt the power of a lost heart to unite—to hold instability steady. In the light of a half moon, they slowly inched their way back to the harbor through small rippling waves lapping against the hull on the shawl of a calm and pleasant breeze in which Paula herself seemed to be draped.

Preparation Is the Soul of Survival If people knew all the inane things that could happen to them on a sailboat, they’d never get into one. Those who do know and go to sea, do it very carefully. —Quote from “The Sea and the Tree”

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Every day over the next month, Ken honed his sailing skills with Cindy. Within two months, both sensed a bond between them growing. Cindy still had a few book signing commitments left, but after each one she found herself returning to Key West. On a returning flight, Cindy caught herself wondering where all this was leading. Words from her past rattled back. She remembered telling Rusty during his need for direction: “Say something. Do something. Write something, but make it convincing.”

Now Cindy found the same words speaking to her and begging for an answer. After six months of going and returning and the fondness growing stronger, Cindy said something.

“What would you think of me moving onto the boat with you?”

A warm embrace quickly answered the question.

“I can’t explain it,” Ken said, “but I have a strange feeling that our union involves something larger than the both of us.”

“Well,” Cindy said softly, “if the sea is calling you and the sea is calling me, let’s answer the call together—we’ll cruise to where our joined hearts take us.”

With that, preparation for the journey was on. Ken took charge of food provisioning. Cindy handled the endless details of gathering the proper safety gear. In the process, Cindy noticed Ken becoming jittery as the launch date approached.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“The closer we get to being alone on the sea, the more it scares me. This isn’t tinker-toy sailing. I can’t even imagine how rough it gets out there.”

“Not even the sea expects you to take a storm head on,” Cindy said and read a passage to Ken out of her book: We deal with the sea no different than a tree handles its life on land. The wind, rain and sun can be both friend and foe alike. When it’s a friend, embrace it. When it’s not, dis-

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cover the tools at your disposal to withstand it.

—Mather in a former life “You have to sail more than once to love it, but if the weather’s bad and you’re unprepared, once is enough to hate it.” Cindy stated. “I’m going to teach you a storm tactic called ‘heaving to’ and it’s not the type of heaving most people associate with sailors. A prudent sailor always test his foul weather tactics in calm waters first.” Carefully, and in detail, Cindy spelled out how the “hove to” process worked by launching a small parachute at an angle off the bow of the boat. “It’s not the wind that gets you in a storm, it’s the breaking waves.”

Over and over again, Cindy meticulously showed Ken how to deploy the parachute— how to position it in a preceding wave and then lock in the helm so the boat was at the proper angle to slide at a 45-degree angle down the wave. Even in calm waters, Ken was amazed to see how the slick created by the sliding boat churned enough turbulence on a wave to make the wave break “around” the boat not “on” the boat.

“That’s what saves lives,” Cindy said. “And, we’ll practice and practice this until both of our movements become a coordinated instinct.”

And so they did repeatedly until together they were able to perform the procedure blindfolded, in the dark, with their hands tied behind their backs in a gunny sack. Then, and only then, did Cindy say, “We’re ready.”

With their launch date near, Ken painted a name on the boat’s transom: C-Dual Paha The name contained the letters of both Chad and Paula’s names for whom this trip was linked. The name itself not only paid tribute to Cindy and Ken’s union, but also honored the holy hills that brought them here which now would take liq-

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uid form in shapes of waves flowing beneath their keel.

A day before departure, Cindy noticed a sign erected in front of the yacht club with the latest update of Trisha’s plan: Paintings in Plan…..............................741 Still Outstanding….........100 (plus one) Other than her necessary clothes, the only possession Cindy kept for the cruise was the The Meeting Place. Initially she worried about where to keep it safe on the boat. Then she thought of Trisha. Cindy took the picture out of the frame, laminated it and simply stuck it with her charts. The best way for something to go unnoticed is to put it in the open.

On their departure day, Cindy and Ken’s minds drifted back to the forest where in essence this journey had started.

Sigmund had told them both a lot of different lines, but there was one befitting for the occasion that made them giggle: “I don’t want to leave anybody behind in life, but there are a few people hell bent on being brought up on loitering charges.”

As Cindy untied the dock lines she stated out loud to well-wishers a passage from her book. “We seek the wind of discovery….but all is to no avail unless one first is willing to shove off from the security of the dock.”

With that, C-Dual Paha pushed its bow into the Gulf Stream swells.

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40

The Gulf Stream The Gulf Stream is a river within an ocean with a current all its own. Most sailors cross it quickly to avoid the treacherous waves created by storms blowing against its current. Cindy was not of this nature. She navigated C-Dual right down the Gulf Stream’s pipe. She knew this route would be more difficult than others, but it would test their skills sooner rather than later. Sailing on the underbelly of the Bahamas, C-Dual took the southern cut between Cuba and Haiti then headed east into the Caribbean to the Greater Antilles.

Cindy and Ken kept their safety harnesses securely tied to the boat during the rough and choppy ride. South of Puerto Rico, a rogue wave smashed C-Dual broadside. Its force slapped the mast into the water and dumped Ken into churning waves. When the boat righted, Cindy calmly took Ken’s lifeline and towed him back aboard. Through it all and without complaint, Ken experienced the physical side of the “heaving to” process in ocean sailing. His sea legs had been earned.

After anchoring in Antigua, the couple leisurely plied the trade winds south through the beautiful islands of the Lesser Antilles. In the warmth of the sparkling waters off Saint Lucia, Cindy sat in the cockpit and peered into a pouch containing her diamond seeds of growth. All were still shaped like children, but half were gone. Cindy surmised those missing were

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the first part of her life; those that remained were for now— but for what purpose? The seeds brought Cindy’s mind back to Mather, and she shared those fond memories with Ken. “You know what he called me? ‘Cin-tree.’ Isn’t that cute.

I was pretty out of whack back then. Mather helped turn that part of my life into one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve had. He gave me hope. In a way, his guidance made all that we’re doing now possible. God, how I miss him.”

“Just where in the forest was Mather?” Ken asked.

Cindy spent fifteen minutes describing in intricate detail Mather’s stately form and exact location in the forest. Ken felt an uneasiness grip his stomach.

“Then some jerk chopped him down. What kind of a person would do that?” Cindy asked glaring into the waves. “If I ever find out, he’s a goner.”

Ken’s unsettled stomach turned into a knot as he wiped a tear from Cindy’s cheek.

The Stream Of Goodness We are always in someone’s pathway and they in ours. Whether in the forest or on the ocean this is not a case for war. Rather it is an opportunity for a course correction so all may safely pass and get to where they’re going. Prudence and size many times dictates who makes this correction. —A thought from C-Dual Paha as it dodged oil tankers off the coast of Trinidad “I sense as if something is calling me, but I don’t know what,” Cindy said as they anchored off the Port of Punto Fijo, Venezuela. Cindy seemed despondent ever since the Mather conversation. Once they set anchor, Ken decided getting off

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the boat for a time would cheer her up and suggested an inland trip. After days of donkey carts and dilapidated pickups over dusty roads, the couple found themselves in the small town of Loreto on the Orinoco River banks.

“Not the type of cheering up I was expecting,” Cindy said on arrival.

For both, it was a one-hundred-year march back in time.

Hope had fallen on hard times in Loreto. Families toiled on small land plots to eke out the barest type of survival. “Dirt poor” here was an inherited lineage—shabby shacks and a meal-a-day the norm. The abject poverty ignited a spark of hope in Ken’s heart. Within a week, he set up a daily clinic in a small shack. Cindy assisted as locals lined up for treatment.

Using Cindy’s trust fund, Ken ordered medical supplies from Caracas. Within a month, he was performing minor surgeries and teaching locals to assist. Shortly after, he convinced a medical team from Caracas to make weekly visits. From then on the clinic was up and running on its own steam.

“I guess we’ve found what was calling us,” Ken told Cindy after treating the last in line for the day.

“Just part of it,” Cindy said sharply.

“What else?”

“The children.”

While helping to set up the clinic, Cindy became aware that scores of the children they treated were orphans. Extended families and the local church helped as well they could, but for the most part these kids were marooned in a hellhole without a prayer. Instinctively, Cindy brought her judicial skills to the children’s aid. With Denel’s help and the effort of her own adopted children, Cindy put the paperwork in order for an adoption agency. Denel and Cindy’s kids put a staff together in the States that found and screened appropriate parents. Cindy dug up a workable staff from the locals.

Good things are not exempt from brick walls, and Cindy hit one with Venezuelan authorities. The Venezuelan pa-

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perwork was as convoluted as its native python—its death squeeze was the officials themselves. Except for a precious few, officials would not make a move for the agency without a bribe. Cindy played the palm-greasing game for a while, but like the python coiled head to tail, it was a frustrating cycle.

Cindy’s emotions waffled up and down at the whims of swindlers. She became elated when little items worked out and utterly despondent when they didn’t. Internally, the monkey business pushed every rotten button within Cindy that she had battled against all her life. She took every thwarting of the kid’s welfare personally. Enraged, she began mowing down anyone who got in her way.

“Maybe you need to take it easy,” Ken suggested. “Stop trying so hard.”

Cindy paid no heed. The events gnawed at the rock in Cindy’s gut concerning her own inherent goodness—a rock she had tried to smash into dust her entire life, but failed. When her battles escalated into repercussions that threatened even the clinic, Ken stood his ground.

“If you keep this up, we’re going to find ourselves in a war with the only people that can help us. Is that what you want?”

“No.” “Well, then what’s behind all this?” Ken’s question burst the dam of Cindy’s tears. For weeks, the adoption agency took a back seat. Slowly and gently, Ken helped Cindy begin to crumble the rocks of her own tattered history. The exchange was open and brutally honest. When it was done, Cindy’s demons—if not purged—were on the run.

“You’re good for me,” Cindy said.

“We’re good for each other.”

“So, what do I do about the agency?”

“Even in a ragged cloth there is a thread of goodness with enough clout to hold it together. Find it and use it.”

Cindy knew exactly what Ken meant and corrected her course. She was nobody’s God and nobody’s victim. Venezue-

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lan officials never knew what hit them.

Simply dressed and in good faith, Cindy visited the Catholic Cardinal for Venezuela in Caracas and explained her situation. Delightfully, she found Cardinal Gomez innocent as a dove yet as wise as his country’s native serpents. He knew his faith and exactly how it operated within his country’s shaky bureaucracy. Cardinal Gomez wrote a short but pithy letter to all Diocesan priests, ordering it be read at the next Sunday’s mass. The letter linked the life of Christ to the innocence of a poverty-stricken orphan hoping for a home. He mentioned Cindy’s adoption program along the Orinoco River. Then, he suggested that any officials thwarting that effort may want to wonder in their own heart whether what they were doing was in some way tinkering with their own salvation. Like a well aimed arrow, the announcement hit the heart of the bureaucratic python. Within six months, the agency was up and running and placed the first orphaned child from Loreto with a nice family of Hispanic origin in Michigan. As Ken and Cindy bid farewell, the adoption agency was lodged in a local church, administered by an order of nuns so thorough, tough and honest not even the slimiest of bribe takers dared tinker with it.

Goodness is not a disease…but it is contagious. —Thought from C-Dual Paha as it transited the Panama Canal Ken and Cindy recreated what they had done in Venezuela up the pacific coast of Central America. They made sure the medical clinics and adoption agencies were independently running smoothly before heading for another country. Word of their efforts spread quickly through the cruising grapevine.

A reporter for Cruising World magazine linked up with them when they arrived in Guatemala. The couple convinced the editor not to use their names in the article, but allowed him to take pictures of C-Dual, the kids, and the clinic.

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A Vessel in the Stream of Goodness It is said that in this life we are placed where our deepest gladness and the world’s deepest hunger meet. So it is for an anonymous doctor and former judge who are plying their goodness over the seas… —Opening statement from “Cruising World” article There was no fame or fortune in Cindy and Ken’s adventure. All they took for their work is what they needed to move on. Ken’s hands were but an extension of Wakan Tanka’s healing. Each time he extended them, he sensed a fresh and deep honor as his role of doctor. Cindy felt the same with her agency for orphans. Both now were as the Gulf Stream—a river of goodness in an ocean with a current all its own. Cindy helped Ken add a white stripe around the boat while anchored in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

“Generosity,” Ken said when they were done.

“To generosity,” Cindy said as she dinged her plastic water bottle against Ken’s in a toast.

The South Seas were calling as C-Dual dug her bow west into its swells. Cindy sat quietly in the cockpit and Ken on the bow pulpit. He grinned as he thought about walking on the Red Road in a dancing manner—one foot in the world, one in the sea. Now he knew what it meant.

“Paha Sapa,” Ken said as the liquid hills rose above the bow and the land disappeared in their wake. “The heart of all that is.”

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41

Tempest in a Sea-Yacht A Storm serves a purpose. It teaches us to weather one. —Socra-trees to a sapling hit on the noggin in a hailstorm

A weather-beaten sign at the harbor mouth caught Cindy’s eye as C-Dual pulled into the Marquesas Islands: Paintings in Plan……...........................826 Still Outstanding……….....15 (plus one) It made Cindy duck into the cabin and quickly thumb through her charts until her fingers landed on the Meeting Place. Cindy quickly jumped back into the cockpit, and swung the boat into the wind as Ken dropped anchor. Both were shocked when they went through customs. Rude officials zealously tore the inside of the boat apart, ransacking every locker. They were looking for something specific and when they did not find it, they left in a huff with the boat in shambles.

A haunting feeling returned to Cindy—one she had during the entire trip. Somebody had pilfered the boat in Hawaii and cut a fine line halfway through the rudder with a hacksaw.

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Had Ken not caught it and replaced the rudder, they could have been stranded at sea. Now this. It seemed someone or something was trying to impede their travels.

Though at the time they never pieced the parts together, the answer came when Ken dialed in his ham radio for news from the mainland. In the states, the squabble over paintings released into T. Tripis’ plan had turned into a vulgar public brawl. Nobody was immune from a fist-pounding opinion on the matter. Behind it all stood Senator Astan Prince, ratcheting the racket to a fever pitch with every malicious punch he could throw to wobble the knees of the plan.

“How stupid,” Ken said as they motored out of the harbor and set a southwest course aiming C-Dual through the slot between American Samoa and the Society Islands. Five hundred miles out, Cindy gulped as she watched the barometer drop like a rock.

“We’re in for a gale,” she said.

Ken followed Cindy’s instructions to put on his foul weather gear and tie down all loose equipment. Within an hour, a thirty-foot wave rose, broke, and smashed on C-Dual’s hull. Its force rattled every plank and sent shivers down Ken’s spine. Not in his most vivid imagination had Ken ever envisioned such a pounding. The rising waves, wildly out of control exploded all around him. The wind snatched frothy droplets from the wave crests and shot them down like bullets against Ken’s face.

“This is just the beginning,” Cindy yelled. “Heave to!

We’re going to have to heave to.”

The words stunned Ken. He froze stiff as 60-mile-an-hour winds screamed through the rigging.

“Ken!” Cindy hollered again through the roar. “Heave to.

This is life and death stuff here. Grab the chute and heave to, now! Now Ken, now!”

The wind screeched, somehow daring Ken to oppose it.

Face to face with his own fear, Ken grasped he had no alterna-

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tive but to face this issue or roll up in a fetal ball and die. In the blink of an eye, Ken’s mind simply said, “no” to confusion and acted in blind faith in a system he had practiced, but was never really quite convinced would work in this big a mess.

Ken outfitted and deployed the chute into the preceding wave as smoothly as he had done in practice. When he cleated off the line, Cindy locked in the helm. As C-Dual’s controlled, sideways slide down the waves began, the exploding and crashing stopped.

“Look!” Ken shouted. “It works.”

“Ain’t that something,” Cindy laughed as the two crunched in the cockpit watching the billowing waves approach, then separate around C-Dual’s hull like diverging comets in the galaxy. Ken felt the grip of his innermost fear dwindle down to nothing more than an alertness. Each took turns on watch throughout the night as they floated through the liquid blackness.

It is the storms that teach us our strengths, not the calm winds. But the calm does help us sort it out. —C-Dual thought after the storm.

Opposites are closely linked at sea. The doldrums hit the next day—zero wind with waves leveling out to mere ripples glittering in the sunlight. If there is an inner satisfaction that human understanding cannot grasp by its own measure, Ken found himself imbued within it on this windless day. He was now a calm heart, not just on serene waves, but on any type of wave as he prepared to add the red stripe to C-Dual’s planking. Before he pushed the brush tip into the paint, Ken paused thoughtfully and walked to Cindy sunning herself in the cockpit.

“There’s something I need to tell you. I’m the guy who chopped Mather down.”

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“What?”

“Mather. It was me. I chopped him down.”

Anger rose to a redness in Cindy’s face. “You deceived me,” she yelled with clenched fists. “Much worse, you mocked me. How dare you!”

Ken froze from the outburst for just a second and then tenderly touched Cindy’s cheek.

“You don’t know how I dare,” he said softly. “I dare because the boat you are riding on is made out of Mather. When I went to the forest he begged me to use him for this journey we’re on. C-Dual is Mather.”

It was Cindy’s turn for paralysis. “Mather…here…this wood…this is Mather!”

“Amazing coincidence, isn’t it?” Ken said as he returned to his painting project.

Cindy spent the day on her hands and kneels in a daze crawling all over C-Dual, gently patting each plank with the palm of her hands. “Oh, my lovely Mather. You told me you would hold me in your arms again. I didn’t know what you meant.” Now and then she stopped for affirmation. “Are you sure this is Mather?”

“Positive,” Ken said.

“Ohhh, my lovely Mather,” and the patting crawl continued. All pieces of this journey seemed to be fitting together in ways that Cindy could never have fathomed. That night, she again found her fingers thumbing through the chart case.

When they landed on the Meeting Place, words from Trisha came to her: “If you meet somebody who needs it more than you, give it to them.”

The words tumbled through Cindy’s mind as she slipped into slumber on the V-berth.

Ken finished the last stroke of his paint job just before nightfall. “Bravery— Woohitika,” he said raising his arms to the sky. “Remember Wakan Tanka.” When the wind picked up, he aimed the bow of C-Dual toward Tonga.

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Treeless Two

There’s nothing old that something new can’t be made of it. —Thought from C-Dual entering Tongan waters

Hafit stood on the Spirit Cave’s ledge, watching a young woman paddling a canoe on the outside of the reefs below him. Taluki could have no more children and recently lost the only son she had in an accident. Without him, she felt her spirit whither and so she paddled feverishly toward the Malo Palo Cave to regain it. A large swell rising to mount the reef broke early flinging the canoe upside down in the air. Taluki tumbled into the sea with a coil from the anchor line tangled tightly around her ankle. With the canoe holding her up and the anchor weighing her down, all Taluki could do was slap her hands to keep her head above water.

“She’s in trouble,” Cindy yelled. “Quick, Ken—Ready about. Hard Alee! Hard Alee!”

C-Dual quickly closed the gap between Taluki, but lost sight of her in the heavy swells. Just as C-Dual dropped nose down into a wave trough, Ken saw a hand spring out of the water, clamping its fingers around the end of the bowsprit. He bolted forward, grabbed the wrist, and hauled Taluki aboard.

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“Are you okay?” Ken asked.

When he quickly cut off the anchor line, Taluki protested as she grabbed and missed its severed end.

“Fine. I’m fine,” Taluki said. “I must return to the Spirit—” then, she abruptly stopped herself before giving up the sacred secret.

“We’re headed to Tongatapu,” Cindy said.

“Tongatapu is fine,” Taluki replied calmly as Cindy draped her in a blanket.

Ken reset the auto-helm and motioned Cindy forward to the bow pulpit. “Look at the end of it,” Ken commanded with a chuckle.

“The end of what?”

“The bowsprit. Get on your hands and knees and look at it.”

Cindy leaned out over the waves and instantly recognized one-half of Mather’s Mark of Goodness.

“A coincidence that’s where she grabbed to save her life?

Ha!” “Oh, my dear Mather,” Cindy said as she rubbed her finger over Mather’s mark. Then she became still and pondered why she had not yet received her own mark. It troubled her.

High above from the cave ledge, Hafit watched as the sailboat turned into a dot on the southern horizon. While observing the incident, a strange feeling overcame him concerning his own peoples’ problem. All the trees had been used up and many youngsters from new clans were waiting in line for their Malo Palo ceremony. ‡ Treedom’s spelling lesson: We exist to be a symbol for man, not a cymbal. —A wise elder palm to an unruly sapling in the Tongan forest

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Faith’s historic resume states one plain fact: Honored traditions are honored because they comfort the soul and allow the spirit to grow. When that becomes impossible, the tradition changes or the affection of its subjects die. Cindy and Ken learned those affections are subject to circumstances when they set anchor in a Tongatapu harbor. A restless gloom hung over the Tongan people regarding Hafit’s most recent attempt to rescue their time honored Malo Palo ceremony.

Hafit sent for tree seedlings from far-off lands, instructing his people to plant and nurse them. The plan met immediate resistance. Many clans felt it wrong to use trees foreign to the spirit of Tongan people. Unrest broke out when the trees were planted and rotted at the root in this alien soil. Cindy listened intently to what normally was only talked about in hushed tones to protect the sacred secret. She learned of Hafit the Cavekeeper.

“Maybe the Cavekeeper should go,” an elder clansman shouted. Through time, Cindy pieced together not only the outline of the secret, but the present problem regarding it. For some reason, the dilemma enthralled her.

“May I visit this man you call Hafit the Cavekeeper,” Cindy asked an elder clansman.

“Never!” the man shot back, shocked that Cindy even knew of Hafit. Taluki’s husband intervened, stating this was the person who had saved his wife. The clansman counseled with other elders throughout the night. Cindy’s answer came the following morning.

“You cannot go to Hafit. Hafit will come to you.”

Cindy’s skin tingled. So grateful for the impending meeting, Cindy flew Denel into Tongatapu. Over the next month she had him combing the Tongan islands on a special mission for Taluki and her husband. The night before the Hafit meeting, Cindy laid on C-Dual’s bow pulpit in a dazed anticipation. When her fingers draped over the Mark of Goodness, the remnants of Mather spoke to her a mysterious, but timely message.

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‡ We do not find peace until our gratefulness for what we possess overpowers the want of what we do not have. —A thought emanating from a purple veined leaf within a wreath in the Malo Palo Cave Cindy sat nervously in the cockpit as she watched Hafit row his canoe toward C-Dual. Now that what she wanted was here, she became fidgety that it was here. It went away the moment Hafit greeted her by gently touching the top of Cindy’s hand with his right palm. Hafit took his seat in the cockpit. He was shorter than Cindy had imagined. A faded wrap draped his wrinkled body. Yet, in this simple garb he appeared untainted from either age or the uncertainty that surrounded him.

“Many times a person reaches a point in life where the only thing he has left is his faith and the hope that resides within it.

At this crossroads, I find myself with no more leaves to support its existence. My spirit senses you know of these things.”

“Only from my limited experience,” Cindy said.

“That is all we really have, isn’t it. And by fate or circumstance we are nudged to transcend it against our will. That’s why I’m here.”

Cindy offered Hafit a lemonade and with it a detailed history of her entire life that led to this journey. “I was so locked into my traditions, I failed to understand the reason for which they were designed.”

“I know that reason,” Hafit said calmly.

“Exactly. Once I latched onto that, it broadened my horizons. And, here I sit happy and contented ten-thousand miles away from home in a new home with you.” Cindy explained she saw a noteworthy link in the fact that Hafit’s problem involved trees and the very boat they sat in came from a special

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tree that had guided her own spirit to freedom.

“This spirit has spoken to you about our difficulty here?”

Hafit asked.

“Strangely, the message was not meant for me. I am just its messenger. I’m not sure what it will mean to you. The message said, ‘do not discard the beautiful tradition of the spirit of your people, but let it grow. What you are looking for is all around you, but you do not see it. There is something in what you constantly say—in what you constantly believe—that is your answer. Find that, and the bubbling stream from which all life springs for you and your people will flow again.’”

“That is a good message,” Hafit replied.

“But not all of it,” Cindy added. “There’s two more things.

The message said to know that since the Creator’s universe is forever changing, it’s okay for us to change and adapt to it.

Finally, it said all of this will take time.”

“Time is a problem,” Hafit said. He explained a Malo Palo ceremony was scheduled for the following week. The elders demanded it. Hafit understood the people were upset with him. “I’m pretty sure that without a new leaf for the ceremony, there will be no more Cavekeeper.”

The two sat in the cockpit in silence listening as fish thudded against the hull. Trisha excused herself and returned from the cabin, handing The Meeting Place to Hafit. “The person who painted it told me if I ever met somebody who needed it more than me, to give it to them. This may give you some time.”

Squinting at the painting in the moonlight, it took Hafit a moment before his eyes seized on the painting’s focal point—a beautiful purple-veined leaf.

“I know this leaf. It is the same one that floated to me by fate from far off years ago. This is a sign. This leaf painting will work.” Again, Hafit touched his palm to Cindy’s hand and again she felt its depth of calmness. “My dear lady, you are a gift.” Then Hafit lowered himself into his canoe and disap-

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peared into the darkness.

“Are you okay?” Ken asked Cindy as he popped his head into the cockpit from the cabin.

“I just gave away about three million bucks and I’ve never felt better.” Cindy’s wonderment lasted until morning when she saw the sign in the village market: Paintings in Plan……...........................841 Still Outstanding……..........0 (plus one) ‡ The human mind must be a home of comfort, ready at any moment for updates and renovations. —Treeverb from Sigmund Using The Meeting Place, Hafit conducted and finished what he knew could be his last Malo Palo ceremony. It saddened him. When the clan had left, Hafit walked to the cliff ledge and bowed on his knees before the Creator. He reflected on the items which Cindy’s message had asked him to ponder.

The link between “US” and the Creator’s ever-changing universe. It’s okay to change. What it is that I constantly believe and say that is the answer? As a brush strokes a canvas, so a thought gently dabbed a new image on Hafit’s mind. Malo Palo! Hafit remembered the words in the ceremony he had said a thousand times and repeated them out loud: “Do you see your place within the spirit of the ever expanding creation of which you are a part?” If the universe the Creator made is ever-expanding, always changing, then so must be the essence of Malo Palo that honors the spirit of Its creation? They are the same. It’s okay to change. Change is the soul of Malo Palo—creation’s soul. Hafit stood and looked down from the cliff scanning all creation that surrounded him—the multitude of fish, the diversity of varied rocks and

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coral, the vastness of assorted plants. When Hafit finally saw what before he could not see, the Creator spoke: All contain the same spirit of the tree and Me. Hafit had his answer. Exhausted, Hafit laid down on his mat beneath the wreath of his clan.

“Why have you so challenged me?” Hafit asked somberly as he slid slowly into slumber. For you and your people to see… ‡ A tree states what it is by what it does, and then firmly stands on the roots of that come hell or high water. —Thought from Hafit as he paddled his way to make a speech to his people.

The capital of Tonga is Nuku’alofa, and all the Tongan people squeezed into its tiny square to hear Hafit’s speech.

Their billowing clamor deferred to jittery silence when Hafit climbed the ornate platform above them.

“I am Hafit, your Cavekeeper. Whether I remain so is entrusted into your hands. We all know our problem. I come to you having been humbled by it. I always thought the solution to a problem was for me to fix it. Such was my quaint and sheltered life. I’d like to say I’ve learned, but actually I am constantly reminded I fix nothing without creation’s hand in it.

Which brings us to a solution for our difficulty. It may not be to your liking. But sometimes, situations become whether we are willing to jeopardize a friendship to be a friend. I remain your friend despite the outcome. A tree is always changing, yet always the same. We have no problem knowing this with a tree for we know it is so because we see it is so. But say Malo Palo must change like the tree from which it is derived and we quarrel with one another and say, ‘No, this cannot be.’ We can no longer say ‘no.’

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“We must no longer fight, for it is insanity to fight against something which no longer exists. There are no more native trees to use in Malo Palo. There can be no more pretending.

Like the tree, Malo Palo must change or die. As a tree never stops growing and changing, so it must be for Malo Palo. For when it stops emulating the spirit that created it, then so to does our own spirit stop and die. We are what keeps Malo Palo alive. Just like the Creator’s ever changing universe so must we be. Malo Palo rests within our hands.

“The theme of Malo Palo’s spirit will remain the same.

Look around you. Look at what the Creator has made for us— our rocks and coral, fishes and plants and the many animals that inhabit the forest. They can become the new symbols in Malo Palo for the clans. The Creator cannot give us a solution unless we are willing to accept it. I ask you now—are we willing to accept it?”

A pin-dropped silence fell over the crowd as each person looked at everybody else for an answer.

“The answer is within you,” Hafit said and then repeated the question: “Are we willing to accept it?”

A lone woman from the crowd stepped forward and broke the deadening silence. “I will accept it,” Taluki said. Then slowly, one by one, each of the Tongan people repeated Taluki’s words until it became a chorused chant: “We will accept it!” The thunderous roar transformed into celebration. The people laughed and hugged and danced the Lakalaka dance as their gleeful clamor drowned out the final words of Hafit.

“Malo Palo lives again.” ‡ Different on the outside. Same on the inside.

—Treesaurus definition of a tree After the celebration, Hafit rowed his canoe out to C-Du-

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al. What he saw surprised him. Taluki and her husband sat alongside Ken and Cindy in the cockpit. Denel and a young Tongan boy that Hafit did not recognize sat on the coachroof. Cindy explained how Denel found a young boy from an outer island who had lost his parents. His clan agreed that Taluki and her husband could adopt him. Hafit gave a worried look. Cindy grasped his concern and whispered in his ear.

Taluki and the boy had shared their heart with one another.

Taluki knew she could not replace the boy’s parents. The boy knew he could not replace Taluki’s son. But, together, there was powerful medicine between them to help both move beyond each other’s loss. Out of the corner of his eye, Hafit watched as Taluki stroked the boy’s arm and ran her fingers through his hair. Her spirit seemed renewed.

“How old are you, my son?” Hafit asked as he reached out and looked at the boy’s right palm.

“Fifteen, Sir,” “Then you must have Malo Palo. I will schedule it. You will join the Spirit of Taluki’s clan.”

Cindy wondered out loud to Hafit if she could also attend the ceremony.

“It is against tradition, but thanks to you, today has been a day of expanding traditions.” Hafit explained she could not only attend, but she would have her own Malo Palo ceremony.

“We will make a special clan for you. One I think has been missing in your past for too much time.”

“May I come?” Ken asked anxiously.

“No, my friend. Just Cin-tree.”

Ken accepted the refusal gracefully and Cindy felt a shiver when Hafit in his dialect pronounced her name exactly as Mather had years ago in the forest.

“What do I wear? What do I do?” Cindy asked jumping up in excitement. Hafit calmly embraced her arm and returned her to her seat. Cindy would wear a tapa gown woven from the bark of a mulberry tree. She would make a wreath and pick

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from the creation of Tonga a symbol of her spirit to place in the wreath.

“You will become the first clan in the new Malo Palo tradition,” Hafit instructed. “Upon your symbol will go your name and the names of all the children for whom you have found parents throughout the world. Send all their names to me and I will put them in the wreath so their spirit may forever reside there with you.” ‡ On a tree, everything is a part of something.

Hafit turned to Cindy after finishing the ceremony for Taluki’s son. “What symbol of creation have you chosen for your clan?” he asked.

Cindy handed Hafit a white, flat stone, smoothed by a thousand years of rippling waves.

“Then you will become the White Stone Clan—the first of the new tradition.”

Hafit hung Cindy’s woven wreath on the cave wall in its proper place. Cindy stared at it, tracing its lineage to all the other wreaths in the cave to see how all clans were kinsmen, friend and family.

“Do you see your place within the spirit of this ever-expanding creation of which you are a part?” Hafit asked.

“Yes.” “Do you see your connection?” Tears welled in Cindy’s eyes and ran down her cheeks. Her insides quivered. All she could do was nod. For the first time, Cindy felt the true footing of her heart’s deepest connection—to herself, to the Tongan people, and to all of the children she had helped. Forever here, all would be a part of her.

“Yes, yes I do,” Cindy said.

“Then, you are a part of the spirit of US,” Hafit said as he

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cut a horizontal curve in the meaty portion of her right palm.

Hafit smiled when he made a second vertical cut and handed her the Pelican feather. Cindy dipped the feather tip into the wound and wrote her name on the white stone. When she placed the stone in her wreath, all of Taluki’s clan applauded, welcoming Cindy into the spirit of the people.

“Practice what you learned here in all you do,” Hafit said.

“If you ever lose the spirit that now resides in you, return here and regain it again. It is here today. It will be here tomorrow.”

“You have honored me, Cindy said humbly to Hafit after the ceremony.

“Only as you have honored US,” Hafit replied.

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43

Returns of the Day

The comings and goings on a tree are so utterly endless that one can only surmise there is no one ending to it, but many endings and beginnings. —Saint Treemas

Five hundred miles off the California coast, a purple-veined leaf encased in a small plastic box dangled off a line on C-Dual’s bowsprit. It jumped and bobbed in the air as deep blue swells careened around the bow and slipped into C-Dual’s wake. Not knowing the irony of it, Ken had put it there. Just before leaving the Spirit Cave, Cindy told Hafit of Trisha’s plan and Ken’s promise to return Mather to the forest so he could dissolve back into the soil from which he came. Upon hearing it, Hafit rushed back into the cave and returned with both The Meeting Place and the purple-veined leaf.

“It is good,” Hafit told her, “that all things return to the home of their beginning.”

As soon as she returned to Tongatapu, Cindy called Trisha to tell her they were setting sail to return The Meeting Place for the plan.

“The sooner the better,” Trisha said. “Senator Prince is raising all kinds of hell.”

“There’s a strange crackling on the phone. Like muffled

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voices. Can you hear it?” Cindy asked.

“I hear it, too. When will you be back?”

“Three to five months depending on our route and the weather. The boat will be sitting by Mather’s stump. The painting will be in the chart case inside the boat. I’ll call you the second we have it there.”

“Thanks, I’ll get John to pick it up. I’ll wait for your call.

Fair winds and smooth sailing.”

The weather was sad on the day Ken and Cindy prepared to set sail from Tonga. Hafit and his people had become a part of Cindy’s heart, and she felt she was leaving a piece of it there.

Hafit summed up her thoughts in his final words of farewell as he softly patted the bandage covering Cindy’s healing Mark of Goodness.

“You have done a service to me through your life, and I with mine to you. If there is more to life, please tell the world, for I have missed it.”

The words so captured the spirit of Mather that Cindy felt everything in her life had pulled together—even in this separation, there was a strong palpable sense of connection.

Cindy would not know that halfway through her journey home, Hafit would become ill and his people would become restless again because of it. She was unaware that in this distress Hafit again stood before his people. Three times he asked, “Have I fulfilled my purpose to my people and my Creator?”

And, three times the people responded, “Yes.” Cindy would not know that two days later Hafit would die and the people became even sadder. Nor did she know that before his death, Hafit had appointed Taluki’s son as his replacement as Cavekeeper. Upon hearing this, the people accepted it and through this acceptance Malo Palo continued and the people again regained their joyous spirit.

In the open ocean’s deep blue timelessness, Cindy was aware of none of this. She did realize halfway home that in a short time, she would no longer be held in Mather’s arms. It

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saddened her. Though the trip back to the states was an upwind ride, the time was flying by far too quickly. She wanted it to last a lifetime. It was then she decided it would. Cindy contacted Denel on the ham radio and told him to look for a new boat. She gave him exact specifics on what she and Ken wanted and said they did not care where they had to go to pick it up. C-Dual was 100-miles off Dana Point when Denel radioed back.

“I’ve got your boat. It’s in the Far-East,” he said and provided all the details. As they trailered C-Dual back to the forest, Cindy and Ken bubbled with enthusiasm, guessing about what their new boat would look like and what they would name it.

One way or another we all return to the home of our heart.

—Mather as a boat named C-Dual while being unloaded from its trailer in the forest C-Dual’s keel sunk into the forest mud next to Mather’s stump. It had seen the world and come back home. Except for The Meeting Place, which was inside the cabin, Cindy and Ken stripped the boat of everything that was not wood. Cindy shattered the box holding the purple-veined leaf. At first, she wanted to take it with her, but decided against it and laid the leaf on Mather’s pulpit.

“Thank you Mather,” she said as she kissed C-Dual’s hull and repeated the words of parting both Hafit and Mather had spoken to her at different times. It was mid-morning by the time she grabbed her cell phone.

“Trisha, this is Cindy. We’re back. The boat is back, and the you-know-what is where I told you it would be.”

Much was said in this short conversation and both ends heard the annoying crackling sound reappear on the line.

“Good luck with the plan,” Cindy said.

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“And, God speed to you wherever you go.�

With that, Cindy and Ken caught an early evening flight to Indonesia. There was a boat waiting for them that needed a name.

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44 Shoot-Out at Oak A. Coral There comes a time when what we must do must be done or forever be forgotten.

—Treeverb

A jeep with its lights out swerved off the dark forest path and ground to a halt fifty-yards from where John stood next to Oak A. Coral. A stout woman sat behind the wheel mumbling something to her passenger as he opened the door and headed straight for John.

“I’ll have that painting,” Prince growled as he stuck a revolver in John’s stomach.

In one swift move, John grabbed the gun barrel and jammed it inward until it pointed at Prince’s body. In the millisecond that Prince paused in panic to release pressure from the trigger, John twisted and seized the weapon into his own hands. John quickly discarded the bullets and banged the gun butt against Prince’s forehead, knocking him to the ground.

“You could have killed me but you didn’t,” Prince said slyly rubbing the red knot on his head. “It tells me you’re a reasonable man. Maybe we can work something out here. The painting’s worth billions.”

“Not interested,” John said as he calmly leaned against

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Oak A. Coral.

“I think your purity’s a little tainted,” Prince sneered.

“Money doesn’t matter? You swam in its luxury and bought your son off with it for years just to avoid him. A little less than noble if you ask me.”

“What troubles you?” John asked unfazed by the mauling.

Unnerved by the question, Prince pressed his assault.

“And all the dead buddies you left on the battlefield. What a hero you are.”

John refused to defend himself or feel the sting. Prince flew into a contorted rage when his fangs could not penetrate the solid tissue of John’s healed wounds. As Trisha and John had realized in his television stints, this calculating brute did have a soft underbelly to criticism.

“Tell me Prince, would putting an end to me heal your pain? Something tells me you know you can kill people, but not their goodness. Has that been your problem?” John saw him squirm.

“If you want to talk about murder,” Prince murmured in a shaky tone, “let’s discuss that son of yours.”

John’s mind steeped with immediate suspicion. In that slight moment of pause, Prince bolted toward C-Dual. John tackled him before he got ten steps away.

“Nobody’s going anywhere until this is settled,” John snorted while tossing Prince against the tree. As John prepared to sit down on a bench his son had made, Oak A. Coral dropped a leaflet into Prince’s pocket inducing a brief trance.

Leaflet’s major point: Everybody knows a snake has a heart, but not many know where to find it. ‡ “You fight against the truth within your own heart,” John

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said as Prince awoke in a daze. “It consumes and destroys you.”

“I’m a senator; I could ruin you,” Prince rebelled.

“You live in a self-made hell where good is but a foreign friend of which you refuse acquaintance. It’s a terrible place to live. I know. I lived there once. Astan, tell me, what is it that you suffer from?”

Astan winced. Nobody had ever called him by his first name before. Its intimacy made him shiver. John watched as the harshness before him shriveled from the weight of its own cruelty. A phrase from a long-ago dream pierced John’s mind.

The final link that completes the chain. He had the link: the nine short words his son had taught him, plus one.

“Astan, I love you. You suffer the same as me,” John proclaimed rising from the bench. The words buckled Prince’s knees, yet he tried to prolong his attacks. Each time he did, John repeated the words. Each time Prince heard them, they corroded the core of his crudeness into mush. No fight could dent the power of the words. No defense could escape their kindness. Faltering in his concocted world, Prince crumbled to the ground in bewildered pain.

John again sought the solace of the bench his son had made and looked up at the night sky. While in repose, he envisioned within the stars the gap between two hands in a master’s painting on a certain chapel’s ceiling—“We are all hearts of the same universe,” John said as he rose and reached out to Astan. “Take my hand.”

“I can’t,” Astan murmured in fear.

John repeated the gesture. Prince stared at the space between their hands and trembled.

“Grab my hand.”

“I can’t.”

“Astan, reach out. Close the gap.

“I can’t!” Prince cried.

“Why not? Your pain is your secret. It’s the ache of all of

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US. What is it that you suffer from?”

“A truth that will not set you free.”

“Tell me,” John demanded.

Astan’s Final Bow Every time a leaf falls, it leaves a scar upon the branch that grew it. Yet, every spring the branch grows more. Apparently, it’s worth it.

—A quote from Artus Norber’s book in a chapter entitled “Tree-vine Mercy” “Tell me!” John insisted.

“I am the same as every man, and I hate it.”

“That’s all? That’s it?” John asked stunned. For the first time in Prince’s brutal life, a worried tremor twitched on his parched and weary face.

“Your son,” Astan wailed. “His death was of my doing.”

The shock pounded John’s heart, hurling him back upon the bench his son had made. Only from that solid setting could his heart find calm. Then, John wept. When Astan grasped that John cried for him, he cringed.

“I’m sorry,” Astan said.

John sat quietly for hours, glancing at Astan’s pitiful remorse. He thought again of the master’s painting. The gap.

The short space between outstretched hands where all ideals of man were written—each to one’s own needs and ability to understand this complex yet simple matter: How shall we live?

It is a small gap, thinner than an eyelash and broader than a galaxy—the distance determined long or short by the mere willingness of a human heart to humble itself to healing.

Hours of night drew to dawn. In this solid seat his son had made, John resolutely clenched his duty. This foe would not be hated.

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“Astan, take my hand.”

“How can you do this,” Astan asked, kneeling before John.

“How can I not? Up to now, you knew no other way.”

Astan stared at the space between their hands. It mesmerized him. Given what he had done, it was beyond reason. Yet, there before him was the outstretched hand.

“How do you do this thing?” Astan asked as he inched his hand to close the gap.

“If goodness doesn’t start here, it goes no further,” John replied.

With that, Astan closed the gap and weakly grasped John’s hand. It ignited a spark that sucked out all the violence. Astan felt his first touch of gentleness in what seemed a million years. Waves of warmth streamed through his chest.

“How do you do this thing?” Astan asked again reverently.

John took him literally. “I lit my lamp in the darkness.”

The comment shot fear through Astan. He yanked his hand away and quickly pulled out a knife, jamming its point against his own neck. When John lunged to wrestle the weapon away, his head collided with a stout branch, knocking John’s mind into a haze. ‡ Not to this day can John remember exactly what happened then. He thinks he saw the stout lady speed away in the jeep.

Whether anyone was with her, he cannot recall. The memory of Astan Prince is also fuzzy, locked in the mist of a few foggy versions. In one, his body simply shriveled into drizzle that drifted toward the heavens. In the other, he disintegrated into a puff of dust, which was sucked into the bark of the sapling that sat upon Mather’s stump. In this version, it is said the sapling gave but a twittering wiggle of joy, knowing once again US confided in him a wrong that could be righted. He felt honored to be so entrusted.

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Though John is undecided whether Prince disappeared in his own mind or elsewhere, he is certain of one thing. Neither he nor the sapling on Mather’s trunk were tainted by any part of this encounter.

John’s Final Bow A calm presence of what was right surrounded John as he climbed into C-Dual and took The Meeting Place out of the chart case. Afterwards, he found himself at the bow of the boat staring at the circle on the end of C-Dual’s bowsprit.

“It can’t be,” John whispered to himself. “But it is—the other half of Mather’s mark.” John took the knife that Prince had left behind, cut off a thick slice of the circle, and walked over to Mather’s stump. There, he cut notches in both ends where the lines of the two circles joined. Carefully, he embedded the two together. Mather’s Mark of Goodness was once again complete.

The moment John snapped the two pieces together, a humble voice arose from the stump. “Remember I told you that I would ask you a question the next time we met? It is time for me to ask it. Will you forever grieve that which was your jewel, or will you hold its purpose tight? How do you honor him?” the spirit of Mather asked.

John stood quietly a moment before breaking into a broad smile. “I honor him by who I am and the life I live,” John said confidently as he walked over and bowed before both Oak A. Coral and the stump and boat of Mather.

“How wonderful that now you know,” Mather said as John disappeared into the sunlight with The Meeting Place under his arm.

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Plus-One Cindy and Ken motored slowly out of an Indonesian harbor on their new boat. Cindy was with child and beaming.

A week before, both had painted an appropriate name on the boat’s transom to reflect their new circumstances: C-Dual II…Plus One The couple looked forward to continuing their work wherever their new travels would take them. A sign off the harbor’s mouth caught Cindy’s eye.

“Look, Ken!” Paintings in the Plan………….............841 Paintings Outstanding...0 (plus one is in) Cindy and Ken shared an understanding grin. As they broke for open water, Cindy rubbed the fleshy part of her right palm. Her Mark of Goodness was healed now. She remembered Hafit’s grin when he made the second cut. Cindy smiled as she stared at the mark. The bottom scar looked like the curved hull of a boat. The one above resembled a child standing in the boat. Somehow, Hafit had known. It made Cindy think of the Tongan people, their cave, and Malo Palo— of which no mention is ever made.

They will not talk of it, for the spirit cave and the path leading to it are within their hearts the footprints to God. As close as an outsider can come is through a Tongan handshake.

They will gently grasp our hand, knowing through the touching of the scar on the inner palm, we are unknowingly embracing their soul. And, if we look closely when it is done, we will see a twinkle in the Tongan’s eyes and a grin upon their face, for they know our ignorance of the weighty matter within our hands.

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45

An Ending

As a symbol of life, we understand both our independence and our dependency.

Accordingly, we are among the few who give back all of what we are to that from which we came. —Quote from Mather For a moment, Phil’s mind traveled one week ahead. A silent tinge of joy shot through his body as he sat at his desk preparing for his “Recipe” class. In seven days, Trisha’s plan would come to fruition. It excited him. Earlier in the morning, he had called Trisha and thanked her for allowing him to be a part of the plan. He couldn’t wait to see the final masterpiece. “God, the generosity of it all,” he whispered to himself as he shifted his mind back to his class. No longer a man of yoke or burden, Phil intensely loved his class and the variety of students within it. He had also learned to love to tinker with them. He looked at the anagram lying on his desk: (A. Hid to b vast.)

He devised it at the beginning of the year and no student thus far had been able to decipher it. It tickled him.

“Ha, gotcha!” Phil chuckled to himself as he entered the classroom with the ever present, tail-wagging Puppy beside him. The students perked up waiting for what they had titled “P-T” or Phil’s Three—his habit of starting the recipe class

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with three quotes he garnered from the forest to stimulate the day’s discussion. Some were good. Some bombed. Nobody seemed to care. If one was good and the class didn’t get it, Phil would always say, “gotcha!” He loved being the gotcha guy.

“Okay, here we go,” Phil said looking over his glasses.

“Number one: Orville and Wilbur took credit for flight, but it makes a maple seed fluttering in the wind laugh to even hear of it.” The class groaned and Phil chuckled. “Number two,” he continued. “Tree leaves situate themselves to receive rays of the sun while at the same time making sure not to block it out for others.” This one drew pause, then applause.

Phil felt a tingle run down his left arm before he reached number three. Then a giant fist squeezed his heart as he dropped to the floor. A student ran for help. Within three breaths, Phil was gone as Puppy lapped his forehead and the students stood by stunned. Moments passed before a student broke the silence.

“What was the third one?” he asked looking at the paper in Phil’s motionless hand.

“No, it wouldn’t be right,” a young lady protested.

“Yes, it would. We all know Phil. He would have wanted us to know.”

The young lady picked up the paper and read number three: “Don’t misjudge an idle tree. It’s doing something.” ‡ Before his death, Phil had assigned the students a project.

He asked if they could collectively make sense of what Vanna RI could make no sense of—the 3,364 most ghastly incidents in history. “Do they prove anything conclusively?” he asked.

Dedicated to their mentor even in his death, the students vigorously tackled the project. The same young lady who read Phil’s last line on the day he died read the class’s collective answer at his funeral.

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“Though none here other than his students may know the question, Father Phil—this is our personal answer to you.

That the quest for power—to be set apart from others—in any way other than through the gifts which draw US together is always fleeting and inconsequential. Only the character of the gods has any lasting value—only the heart lives forever, as your heart does in US.” All Phil’s students past and present helped to erect a monument on campus beneath a tree where Phil was laid to rest.

All collaborated in its inscription: Here lies Father Phil Who asked us: “What’s your recipe?”

You are now and always will be our “BODHISATTVA” ‘gotcha!’

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46

A Beginning

We are but symbols of a courageous act.

—Socra-trees in “The Treepublic”

In the minutes before dawn, reporters from hundreds of countries bustled about in a flurry of excitement near Father Phil’s gravesite on the college campus where he had taught. A throng of satellite trucks and cameras surrounded an ornate 29-by-29-foot frame containing 841 paintings. On this day, three-and-one-half years from its launch date, the plan would rocket into oblivion all but one of the priceless paintings by the most famous unknown artist in history—all with but the simple click of a computer key at sunrise.

People throughout the lands sat glued to their screens watching the preparation. It was billed to be the most highly viewed world-wide event ever to be seen on television. Everybody knew the plan’s outline. The paintings would be destroyed as the only method to see what all the pictures meant together—the artist’s final masterpiece. Anticipation grew as reporters dissected every detail of the plan and speculated widely on the outcome.

Trisha sat serenely in her cabin watching as a live camera

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tightly captured The Meeting Place sitting on an easel 30 feet in front of the massive frame containing the other paintings.

She smiled when she saw a young Tongan boy’s name written in blood overlapping her own signature on the painting. The picture switched to Brad at the computer. It made her think of all the friends who had helped her in this plan—of wonderful Father Phil, of Denel and Cindy and Ken, of John and his son.

Each had found their beauty through hardship. How different each was from her, yet so much the same. Then the first sparkling shaft of sunlight peaked above the horizon and Brad pressed the computer key.

An eerie quiet blanketed the scene as camera lenses locked onto the massive frame. One-by-one, the pictures slowly began to transform into a new form over the first minute of the three-minute time period. In sixty seconds, the 841 paintings completed the new image. It stunned everybody. Before all the world’s people materialized a massive but familiar reflection— The Meeting Place.

The paintings had mutated into what was T. Tripis’ original painting. What had initially started the artist on her journey was now her final masterpiece—all her work diminished to its simplest original form.

Reporters started to comment on it, but quickly quieted. Over the next minute another piece of the image transformed. Slowly, the purple-veined leaf the young boy’s hand was reaching for in the painting took a sketchy but legible shape of another hand. Now it was a hand reaching for a hand.

Again, the reporters began to squawk, and again, they were instantly speechless. Over the last minute, in animated, second-by-second degrees the two hands started to move toward one another. Though the slow movement together was smooth and peaceful, it had the audience holding their breath in nervous anticipation. The moment the hands touched a spark ignited between them. The ember instantly sizzled and quickly cracked lightning around the squares of all the 841 paintings,

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igniting them into flames. Within seconds all the paintings and all the characters of the gods which had been so delicately and carefully painted within them crumbled into scorched remnants—each little piece reduced to nothing more than lighterthan-air fragments of charred canvas floating on the breeze.

One small piece settled softly on Father Phil’s tombstone. The reporters stood in stunned silence. There was nothing more to be added. This was the final masterpiece, and now it was done.

Trisha switched off her television and walked over to her cabin’s bay window, resting her chin on its ledge. A young girl in a green stocking cap strolled slowly by outside in the crisp fall air with her mother, Sarah. The child carried an easel under one arm and a partially finished canvas under the other. Trisha quickly grabbed her binoculars. A tiny area of the painting caught Trisha’s intrigue. The brush strokes were of a style she had never seen before in art work. What she had not been able to figure out before hit her like a whirlwind: Sarah. Sarah! Sarah! Princess of the Dawn. Trisha knew what it meant. Trisha’s work and masterpiece were done. But now before her, with the rays of a fresh dawn shining brightly upon it, was a new masterpiece of creation in progress. “How wonderful,” Trisha said to herself with a smile as the phone rang.

“Trisha, this is John. Just checking to see if you’re okay.”

“Everything’s fine, John” “No regrets?”

“The older we get the more we realize what we have wasn’t ours in the first place. We’ve just borrowed it for a time. What’s done is done. No regrets. The point’s been made. How about dinner?”

Hubbub What happens when you’re looking for the wrong thing.

—Sigmund

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Trisha spread her diamond seeds of growth through her creative masterpiece. Because of it, the many degrees of gray in her life found a distinctive shade—one that inspired the imagination of others. After the plan’s fulfillment, people flocked to art stores for T. Tripis prints. The demand for them seemed never ending. Then, the original Meeting Place turned up missing. The world demanded in no uncertain terms to know where it was. Through Brad, Trisha gave her answer: she had sent it away to hang on a cave wall in a far-off land, never again to be seen by the general public. The answer sent every wouldbe spelunker on world-wide treasure hunts. Within months, the answer turned into a world-wide hubbub.

“How dare she do this?” newscasters scorned.

The public became disgusted and again began to dispute with each other over a T. Tripis decision. This time, Trisha simply decided to write a letter to quell the confusion. It appeared in every prominent newspaper: To my dear friends, ‘The Meeting Place’ is but a symbol of the first step that all life must take—the touching of another’s life. Then it is off and gone to who knows where until someone recreates it. Be that someone. Every time we look at a print of ‘The Meeting Place’ we are reminded the original is gone and it is up to us to reproduce it in our own unique and special way. We ourselves are the paintbrush of this spirit of goodness that rises and falls and is continuously reborn. We are guideposts in each other’s step toward heaven. We are part of creation’s plan in each other’s life.

We are the blessing and its beneficiary. Where is ‘The Meeting Place?’ It is within US. That is where the masterpiece resides.

All my love, T. Tripis

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Back to the Beginning As far as I can tell, there’s only been a couple of hundred great thoughts in mankind’s history. They’ve just been updated and rewritten 16-billion times. —Sigmund Long after the hubbub died down, Trisha found herself on the couch thinking again of all her friends. Each had told her about a wonderful final message they had received from Mather. In this musing, she realized she had never approached Mather’s stump to receive her own. Within moments, she knelt before Mather with her finger on his final ring: “Oh, Trisha, so good to feel your touch again. I’ve been waiting for years to tell you this. Early on, I deeply sensed you had a special gift to instruct the world within the life you’d live. I hope you don’t mind, but the sentiment was so strong within me that I wanted to be part of the blooming potential I saw in you. When first we met, I planted a leaflet story within your dreams that you would never distinctly remember, but its point would always be part of what you did. I have not been here to see exactly what it is you’ve done with it, but I know it must have been a doozie. My dear Trisha, it’s high time I share the story with you. It was an experience I witnessed in my own life, and in a way, it became my only story into which all life fits.

Leaflet: Descending Into Heaven “Two good friends stood before a lofty mountain. Each had different ideas about how it should be climbed. Each thought the other’s plan too hard, too dangerous, and just plain stupid.

So, they fought about who was right. The dispute got nas-

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ty and ruined their friendship to the point where they parted company—each taking their own path up the mountain.

“While climbing, each cursed the other’s decision with every step and handhold. Both reached the mountaintop at about the same time from different directions. Both were stunned to see the other where each thought only he himself could be.

Realizing their mistake, they rushed to one another in a tearful embrace. Each instantly understood the immense hardship the other endured to arrive here among the clouds.

After much discussion and apology, they agreed upon a pathway down. Then, together they descended the mountain upon this pathway into an everlasting friendship. My dear Trisha, there are many paths to the mountaintop and all streams run to the sea. Disagreements sometimes help us learn that the pleasure within the hardship of going up our own way is in coming down together—to earth where we live inside the heart of the understanding gained amidst the clouds.” ‡ That night, while preparing for bed, Trisha wondered what would be a fitting way to end this wonderful day—to celebrate this wonderful life. As she lay down in bed, her hand whisked the corner of a book on her nightstand. It was John’s son’s book, The Education of Rusty Rootless. Trisha turned to the final chapter entitled “A Spirit of Goodness Unites Us.” She turned to its last page and looked down at its final statement.

Then she read it out loud to herself before falling deep into a blissful sleep: May your biggest hurt become your smallest problem. May your difficulties be but bounty upon which your foremost gifts will bloom. And, may the greatest of your joys be the life you live. Thanks for giving of yourself to me, the tree, and US.

au t hor’s p o s t s c r i p t

I don’t think it is any secret in recovery from an addiction, at least for those using the 12-Step Program, that working these steps is specifically aimed at igniting within us a spiritual experience that produces a positive, life-altering change in the very foundation of who we are and how we conduct our lives.

For some, as in the case of the late Bill Wilson, a founder of the program, it comes quickly in an encounter where the clouds seemingly open and a deep, powerful and heartfelt sense of compassion and direction from a Higher Power is instantly felt. Its inspiration is such that the old life of wanting and needing is replaced with a new life-consciousness of serenity, creative purpose and service to others. In many other instances, as in my own case, it comes slowly but continuously in little snippets of awareness from an inner voice and experiences that new, infinite possibilities exist down roads which I either denied even existed or out of fear set up massive roadblocks of screaming sirens blocking their entrance. But, however it comes, when it comes, it comes to stay. And, of course, the whole process requires a desire and action to do something that we have not been doing up to this time. It insists on an invitation for something new to come into our lives.

Once the invitation to this seed of goodness within us—or beyond us (however we come to describe it for ourselves)—is made, it is important to understand the world will not change because of it, but the way we see the world eventually and continuously will, and that possesses the potential to change everything. Will we still have disappointments? Yes. When we pray or meditate for patience, will the most obnoxious bumpkin in the universe get in our face to test it the very next day?

Yes. This is nothing more than the process of allowing the seed of goodness to be nurtured within us—helping it to germinate

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and grow many times over until we get a handle on it. To quote Robert Frost: “Our very life depends on everything’s/Recurring till we answer from within.” That means hard times test our sincerity until we are secure within it. We all know that cleansing, life-giving rain falls from dark clouds. This spirit of goodness simply asks us to apply it to our life—to the path we have chosen. If the path we have chosen is working for us, it will gradually strengthen us. It will, as Thoreau stated: “Let us spend one day as deliberately as nature and not be thrown off the track by every nut-shell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails.”

My effort here was not to choose a path for you. That is a very individual choice for each of us. My endeavor was merely to show the endless possibilities of choosing a path—whether that be traditional religions or something else. The key element down the line, as William James stated in Varieties, is to ask honestly whether the path we have chosen is actually working for us. A case in point as to why I am mentioning this may provide an explanation. Around a year into my recovery, a meeting’s topic revolved around each person stating (if they wished to speak about it) exactly what their spiritual path was. One man expressed his preference in very strong terms and then stated firmly, “You have to choose one.” Though I agree that each of us must make a choice for ourselves about our spiritual paths, I sort of got the idea from the person’s tone that he was stating unequivocally that his traditional path was the only one choice to make—not just for himself, but for everybody. That bothered me on the terms of a simple phrase plucked from the heart of Teresa of Avila who stated, “We ought not insist on everyone following our footsteps, nor to take upon ourselves to give instructions in spirituality when, perhaps, we do not even know what it is.” Even her statement concerns me for the mere reason that perhaps I myself may have crossed those boundaries in this Lessons’ story. My hope is I have not, but should you believe that I have you

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can freely address that subject on the discussion page at lessonsinlivingfromatree.com.

During my using days, I embroiled myself in brutal, albeit futile arguments against this religion or that only to learn—as the saying goes—you can’t pray one way and live another. Or as Nietzsche put it: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster”—which, at times I must admit I was. So today, I neither discount the inherent wisdom of the traditional holy texts, east or west, nor do I allow myself to be constricted by them. I believe there is a seed of the spirit of goodness planted in all people to serve people, and learning to nurture, water and prune it at times of overgrowth are the lessons I must learn to keep it moving forward in a healthy manner. But, that is just for me. I am not selling it to you other than to suggest in metaphorical terms and in many cases literal terms that it might be a crossroads of where many spiritual paths cross.

There is a very common paradox we come face to face with in believing what we spiritually believe and freely allowing others who believe differently to do the same without dispute.

An old friend vividly pointed it out to me through his continuous postings of his traditional religious beliefs on facebook.

To paraphrase one of his posts, he wrote that only a belief in his particular faith possessed the ability to produce a thorough and complete revelation of change in a person’s life. I used facebook’s “message” tool to privately respond to his post: “I know that you are a good and faithful man and respectfully ask you the following question about your statement that only your particular religion can produce the type of change in a person as you described. Many other religions and faiths claim the same thing, and I have personally witnessed such changes in people of different spiritual paths than yours. How do you respond to that?” His response was also respectful and made a piercing point concerning varying spiritual beliefs.

“I realize,” he stated, “that other faiths may cause such

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changes, but I believe that (he stated his religion) is the ultimate, supreme and superior spiritual force that causes such a change.” I do not ask anyone to agree with me here, but his answer might very well be the “piercing point” of anyone and possibly everyone who has undergone a spiritual experience—that is, one must believe—with little doubt, at least for themselves—that their particular path is in fact the ultimate, supreme and superior force that can produce the spiritual experience, for if they did not, it is possible the experience would not happen. In other words, it needs to be personally absolute.

The above is just my guess from a nobody from nowhere, but it answers the paradox of similar changes induced by spiritual experiences from varied belief systems. And, it suggests to me a very vivid truth of how strong an individual belief needs to be in order to produce such an experience. My hope is we can live with that paradox, not grudgingly, but joyously in all its varied forms.

If you have found this book helpful, please share the information of this website address with others in recovery who may be struggling with the Higher Power Question. Whether you agree or disagree with any points in the text, please feel free to write about your concerns or even write a review of the book in the many avenues available on the internet or elsewhere. Who knows, your thoughts may land in a lap where inspiration is needed. As I mentioned at the beginning, this book is free for those who need it to be. That is why I published it on the internet. For those who are willing and can afford a contribution to maintain this website, you can send it to my editor at: Kristin Alberts PO Box 83 Oconto Falls, Wisconsin 54154 If you have found your path, I wish for you a bright and

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fruitful life. If you are seeking a path in which you can believe, be not afraid of the confusion and questions attached to it. All who have found their way have had to wander through a type of wilderness to get to where they were going. What you are seeking is your truth, so follow it wherever it leads you. As it has been for so many of us at the beginning of our spiritual journey, keep in mind the words of the great wordsmith, Shakespeare: “Go to your bosom: knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.� Good luck, and however you understand it, and if you will allow it: God bless.

Warmest Regards, Willow

Continue the discussion at lessonsinlivingfromatree.com Also, for anyone unable to purchase a copy of this book, its entire text can be read at the above website free of charge.

If you feel, in your opinion, this book would be helpful to anyone struggling with the Higher Power questions in step two and three of the 12-Step program, please share this website information with them in your service work.

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r efer ence not es

References: In-Tree-Duction 1. Christ symbolizing the Tree of Life: In Genesis 2:9 in Christian Bible God “made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food…” but named only two of them, one being the tree of life—a symbol interpreted by many as spiritual eternity. In John 6:51, Christ says, “I am the living bread…if one eats of this bread, he will live for ever.” The meaning here is also widely interpreted as spiritual eternity.

2. The Qur’an, Islam’s main holy book, contains the revelations Muhammad received from the angel Gabriel. Initially, those revelations were memorized and handed down orally.

Only later were they placed in written form. Please note that the spelling of “Koran” comes from a translation of the same by © N.J. Dawood 1990, Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ England. The common present-day spelling of this holy text by scholars in the western world is “Qur’an.”

3. There are many versions of the Christian Bible. Several biblical quotations used within this story are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946,1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA.

References: Pro-Log 1. “…cannot always do so by itself.” There are some trees that are self-pollinating. This point as a spiritual metaphor is directed at those that are not. In other words, many addicts need

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guidance on our spiritual quest.

References Chapter 1: In-Tree-Lated 1. The chapter’s concept, though woefully simplified and varied, comes in part from the late Joseph Campbell whose extensive scholarly writings on the myths of man seek out the recurring themes in religions and spiritual paths. Although Campbell stated they are “poetic readings of the mystery of life from a certain interested point of view,” he also noted at the beginning of his series The Masks of God that his studies confirmed a thought he had long and faithfully entertained— that there is a “unity of the race of man, not only in its biology but also in its spiritual history,” concerning recurring themes and motifs. Quotations from Occidental Mythology by Joseph Campbell, copyright © Joseph Campbell 1964; reprinted by permission of Joseph Campbell Foundation (jcf.org).

Numerous chapters in this book, though at times varied and simplified, spring from concepts developed by Campbell in the above and following works: A. The Power of Myth/Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers. © 1988 by Apostrophe S Productions, Inc., and Alfred van der Marck Editions. An Anchor Book published by Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc./666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103.

B. Occidental Mythology/The Masks of God, Joseph Campbell. © Joseph Campbell, 1964. Published by the Penquin Group Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson St. New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. C . Oriental Mythology/The Masks of God, Joseph Campbell,

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© Joseph Campbell 1962. Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson St. New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. D. Other books of note by Campbell concerning this subject matter include The Hero with a Thousand Faces; Primitive Mythology; The Masks of God: Creative Mythology; and Myths to Live By. For one who is leaning toward a particular spiritual path or already has one, Campbell’s work may help by both explaining its connection to others and its uniqueness, which can have a tendency to build not just a cordial tolerance of other believe systems, but both an appreciation of and respect for them. For others who are seeking a spiritual pathway, Campbell provides a wealth of wonderful starting points.

References: Chapter 2, Ringmaster 1. Dendrochronologist: A scientist who studies tree growth rings to determine dates and environmental conditions of the past.

References: Chapter 3, Tree Break 1. “People come to an ideal through those who guide and love them mixed with their own ongoing and changing experiences.

It is both of them equally merged that makes each of us on our own path unique and ironically the same. Within this sits the freedom of the mystery that each must be given permission to make the connection to the ideal, which to each of us is real.”

—Anonymous

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References: Chapter 5, Leaflet 1. Cindy Cavitts: Cavitts is an anagram for sattvic. In Yogic practices, a person engages in specific disciplines to achieve a state of detached serene awareness. That state of wisdom and peacefulness is known as sattvic.

2. Persistence: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press on,’ has solved, and always will solve the problems of the human race.” —Calvin Coolidge

References: Chapter 7, Criminal-It-Tree 1. De-Moan Drag: Acronym for Armageddon from the Christian Bible.

2. Little Horn & Prince: Both different names used in Christian theology for evil or the devil.

3. Good Sam Ritana: Acronym for “Good Samaritan,” from parable of Good Samaritan in Christian Bible: Luke: Chapter 10: Verses 25-37.

References: Chapter 9, The Clearing 1.Trisha: Anagram for “Ishtar.” Between the 18th-17th century BCE, Ishtar was a Mesopotamian female deity known as the goddess of all things. She subdued confusion and out of its chaos, brought harmony and love. She was a compassionate

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goddess who loved righteousness and in its name entertained petitions, prayer, and rendered decisions. (Paraphrased, quoted in Merlin Stone, When God was a Woman, San Diego, California: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976, p.x.)

References: Chapter 10, Tree Strikes and You’re Out… Plus One 1. Obviously, a good deal about Thayer is fictionalized. Thayer neither tried to commit suicide nor suffered depression other than great emotional discomfort at times about the poem itself. Although he wrote what is probably the most famous sports poem in American history, he once told a publisher he was sick of hearing about it. A number of piecemeal biographies on Thayer label him as a brilliant magna cum laude Harvard philosophy student, who was a slightly built, soft spoken friend, and in later years a community-minded socialite and doting grandfather. There is evidence he had a sardonic wit, which he used against others in his writings. He was editor of the satirical Harvard Lampoon. As his classmate Santayana said, “Ernest…seemed to be a man apart…who saw the broken edges of things that appeared whole.” Though he recited Casey at times to gatherings, there is evidence suggesting Thayer thought his poem a curse, though he softened a bit on the subject in later years. Once, upon hearing Thayer unenthusiastically recite his poem, De Wolf Hopper said of his weak delivery: “In a…whisper he (Thayer) implored Casey to murder the umpire, and gave this cry of mass animal rage all the emphasis of a caterpillar wearing rubbers crawling on a velvet carpet.”

The quote about how Thayer felt near the end of his life fairly sums up what he thought about his accomplishments in the arena of philosophy. He did publish a few philosophical texts, though none ever reached the pinnacle of fame hit by Casey at the Bat. Three sources on Thayers background: http://won-

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deringminstrels.blogspot.com/1999/05/casey-at-bat-ernestlawrence-thayer.html; also, The Annotated Casey at the Bat, © Martin Gardner 1967, 1984, 1995, General Publishing Co, Ltd, 30 Lesmill Road, Toronto, Canada. (Portions of book can be read at:) http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Annotated_Casey_at_the_Bat.html?id=fzxmKDuyreQC 2. Methuselah Tree: The five-thousand-year-old bristlecone pine actually exists in California.

3. Vishnu: In Hinduism, the God of preservation.

4. Brahman: In Hinduism, the holder of the principles of all the Gods.

5. From dialogue...

Aasif, Islamic cleric: “Your life is this game, Ernest. Don’t you get it?”

Ernest: “Get what?”

This refers to a Qur’an quote; “God speaks in metaphors.”

From The Koran (spelling as book is titled)—Chapter LIGHT (AL-NUR), translated with notes by © N.J. Dawood 1990.

Published by Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England/ Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc./375 Hudson St. New York, NY 10014.USA. Page 249.

6. Casey at the Bat: “The Art of Poetry”: Sister M. Teresa Clare, S.C.; Seton Hill College, Greensburg Pennsylvania; Revised edition of “A book of Poetry” previously Published by: © Copyright, 1970,1965,1960, The Macmillan Company Collier-Macmillan Canada, Ltd., Toronto, Ontario; Printed in the USA. 1970; Page 114-116.

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References: Chapter 11, Treeless 1.The portion of the Tongan history and the Malo Palo ceremony are fictionalized, although many of the landmarks mentioned are authentic. Tonga’s population today is predominately Christian.

2. Lea’aetoa Hafit. The name for the main character is derived from two items: A.) “Lea’aetoa” is a reference to a wellknown native Tongan healer by the name of Lea’aetoa Tavake.

Through his native treatments employing medicines extracted from local plants, he treats locals and has helped many others in areas where modern western medicine was unable to enact a cure. Stating it is his humane duty to help others, he does not accept favors or payments for his services. See Cruising World magazine, Sept. 2003 edition article entitled “A Man of Strong Medicine.” B.) Hafit is an anagram of “faith.”

References: Chapter 12, Treasure Trove Grove 1. Concerning quote on setting boundaries for the mystery.

The concept comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay entitled “Circles.” Emerson states that the moment one tries to draw a circle around God, God immediately outgrows the circle. From Selected Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson. T. Nelson & Sons, Ltd. Page 113.

2. The rising, falling, and rising again portrayed in story form here is a main theme of famed scholar Joseph Campbell. His erudite volumes of books trace the recurring themes in mankind’s spiritual and religious history. Concept taken from “On Completion of The Masks of God/Occidental Mythology, which was the author’s preface to this book; copyright © Joseph Campbell 1964; reproduced in story form by permission

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of Joseph Campbell foundation (jcf.org) 3.Elmbert Pinestein’s dialogue comes from the following quote from renowned physicist Albert Einstein: “The most beautiful and profound emotion that we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness…A human being is part of the whole…He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness….Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures, and the whole (of) nature in its beauty.” Albert Einstein, The World As I See It, New York: Wisdom Library, 1979; Ideas and Opinions, translated by Sonja Bargmann, New York: Crown Publishers, 1954.

Reference: Chapter 13, Nothing Unnatural in Nature’s Court 1.Denel Nieght: Anagram for “Enlightened.” A term commonly used in Buddhism referring to a heightened state of spiritual awareness.

2.Case number G6: 9-10—Reference to Galatians chapter six, verse nine in Christian Bible: “And let us not grow weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men…”

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Reference: Chapter 14, The Ache 1. Oakum Spinoza: Reference to Benedict de Spinoza, 17th century philosopher whose monumental work entitled Ethics states God is not the transcendent creator of the universe who rules it via providence, but Nature itself of which humans are a part. Humans, he stated, find happiness only through a rational understanding of this system and their place within it.

From: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep. utm.edu/sspinoza.htm 2-A. The “ache” refers to the human secret that C.S. Lewis claims we all have concerning a desire to be transformed as a person which glorifies the Spirit of Goodness (God). As Lewis puts it: “I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you…the secret which hurts so much that you take revenge on it….when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.” The Weight of Glory, Chapter of same name; by C.S. Lewis copyright © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1949.

Extracts reprinted by permission. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 10 East Street, New York, NY 10022; Page 29 & 30 2-B. “Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter….But, all this is a cheat….

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our past— are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mis-

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taken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” Ibid: © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1949, The Weight of Glory: Page 30 & 31.

2-C. Lewis explains he might be weaving a spell. “Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them.

And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness….

We remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy.” That is, ourselves to be “transformed as to glorify the good of god in us, others and the world.” To have fame with God is a pleasure Lewis states as “the pleasure of a beast before men, a child before its father, a pupil before his teacher, a creature before its Creator….” It is to know we are “a real ingredient in the divine happiness.” Ibid: © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1949. The Weight of Glory: Pages 31, 32 & 37 2-D. And how is this accomplished? Lewis states “by ceasing for a moment to consider (our) own wants (we) begin to learn better what (we) really wanted…(to fill) this spiritual longing….the load or weight or burden of (our) neighbor’s glory should be laid on (our) back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken….There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal…our charity must be a real and costly love with deep feelings of the sins in spite of which we love the sinner (mere tolerance is not acceptable). Your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.” Ibid: © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1949. The Weight of Glory: Page 39, 45, & 46.

2-E. We pine to know of this Spirit of Goodness within ourselves, others and the world…“for the longing to be acknowl-

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edged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us.” This pining, Lewis states, “is but a deep desire for glory, for glory means acceptance, and acknowledgment by God—a welcoming into God’s heart of things….the door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.” The point made by Lewis: So what of all our ‘other stuff’ in life? “…he who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only.” Ibid: © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1949. The Weight of Glory: Pages 34, 40 & 41.

References: Chapter 15, Doubt-Phil 1.“Do not doubt.”

A. Depending upon the translation, the first three words concerning the subject of doubt in the Qur’an are: “Do not doubt” or “This book is not to be doubted.” From the Qur’an surah (chapter) entitled Al-Baqarah—“The Cow.” From The Koran (spelling as book is titled), translated with notes by © N.J. Dawood 1990. Published by Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England/ Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc./375 Hudson St. New York, NY 10014, USA. Page 11.

B-1. Muhammad is reported to have been “deeply shaken” after receiving his initial revelation. Upon returning home, his wife Khadijah comforted him, thereby helping him accept his role as a prophet. op. cit. Mary Pat Fisher Living Religions/ Fifth Edition. Page 362.

B-2. “Where goes the night when the day arises.” Interpretive meaning of two verses from Qur’an: 1) (surah-chapter “Light” 24:35): “God is the light of the heavens and earth.”

(Page 249) and 2) (surah-chapter “Daybreak” 113:1…): “…I

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seek refuge in the Lord of Daybreak from the mischief of his creation; from the mischief of the night.” Page 434. op. cit. © N.J. Dawood, The Koran.

B-3. Mather states, “Ring any bells?” Muhammad explained the form in which some of his revelations came as follows: “Revelation sometimes comes like the sound of a bell; that is the most painful way. When it ceases I have remembered what was said.” Abu Abdallah Muhammad Bukhari, Kitab jami as-sahih, translated by M.M. Khan as Sahih al-Bukhari, Lahore: Ashraf, 1978-80, quoted in Annemarie Schimmel, And Muhammad is His Messenger, Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1985, Page 11.

2. “Doubt enters when patience fades:” In the Koran’s (Qur’an) surah (chapter) entitled “AL-FURQAN,” verse 25-32 it states “The unbelievers ask: ‘Why was the Qur’an not revealed to him (Muhammad) in a single revelation?’” The answer: “We have revealed it thus so that we may strengthen your faith.

We have imparted it to you by gradual revelation.” op. cit. © N.J. Dawood, The Koran. Page 255. In other translations it is Verse 25-33 3. Reference to Gandhi teaching the world that there are higher things than force, higher even than life itself. Paraphrase from Author Albert Szent-Gyorgyi’s book The Crazy Ape. © 1970, Philosophical Library Inc., 15 East 40 Street, New York, N.Y., 10016.

4. Winston Churchill’s comments on worms: Main reference of his doubt is taken from Psalms 22 of Christian and Judaism holy text: It begins in verse one with “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?….” V-2: “O my God, I cry by day, but thou dost not answer; and by night, but find no rest.” To V-6: “But I am a worm, and no man; scorned by men, and despised

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by the people.” (7) “All who see me mock at me, and they make mouths at me, they wag their heads”; (8) “He committed his cause to the Lord; let him deliver him, let him rescue him, for he delights in him.” The “glow worm” comment is of Churchill’s own pen.

5. “Faith’s character is a doubt reduction clinic.” Reduction is the key word. As Alfred, Lord Tennyson said, “There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.”

The phrase is worth more than a moment of reflection.

References: Chapter 16, Misery Tree 1. John Norber: Norber is an anagram for “Reborn.” Though the English term in the Western world is normally thought of as solely Christian in nature, the notion of being reborn—or rebirth—in a spiritual sense is familiar to many religions and spiritual movements and defined by many different names, many which precede Christianity itself. In Buddhism it is called enlightenment.” In many Native American spiritual paths it is ‘’becoming a human being’—being humane, and by so doing, becoming closer to the ideal of the Great Spirit. In general, it means a change of heart and consciousness.

2. “Sid” The Seed: Sid is short for Siddhartha or the Buddha.

The literal meaning of “Siddhartha” is “wish-fulfiller,” or “he who has reached his goal.” The title of Buddha means “Enlightened One.” 3. Famed primate expert Dr. Jane Goodall would have been my preference as a personal example concerning the “touch” scene in the movie depiction. Unfortunately, Hollywood has yet to make her story into a full-length feature film. Goodall’s love for animals had a balance in an equal love for mankind. She has

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worked as diligently to discover ways to insure and preserve habitat for humans as she has for primates, though there is no effort here to cause neither feud nor animosity between the two lives. Dian Fossey is quite a different story. Though the base of her work with primates is renowned and cannot be disputed for her courageous and unfailing effort, her methods at times were suspect. There was little give in Fossey’s passion to protect primate habitat. She fought continuously with poachers and African locals where she conducted her research and ultimately was murdered by the natives.

4. The line about John feeling as though he has a warm fire burning in his cabin, but his son will not come and sit next to it with him comes from a comment made by renowned but despondent painter Vincent van Gogh in one of his many heart-wrenching letters to his supportive brother Theo. In the letter, van Gogh was referring to his own heart and its inability to draw others close to it.

References: Chapter 18, Ed. Of Rusty Rootless (Day One) 1. Oak Stump #ICH-36: “ICH” refers to I Ching/ The Book of Change. Its wisdom constructed in hexagrams is thought to be the foundation of Eastern thought. Its ancient text is a tool in Chinese thought of how to live in harmony with change within this world. The specific statements beneath it are paraphrases of specific Hexagrams as it relates to Rusty’s predicament in the I Ching text. Both are listed below: A. #36: “Righteous persistence in the face of difficulty brings reward….the superior man, though takes care to conceal (his light) nevertheless shines.” Page 157.

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B. Ring 5 (Hexagram 5): “Calculated inaction (or exhibiting the power to wait) and the confidence of others win brilliant success.” Page 98.

C. Ring 20 (Hexagram 20): “Looking at things in a childish way is not blameworthy in ordinary people, but in the superior man it is a misfortune.” Page 127.

D. Ring 22 (Hexagram 22): “…some small advantage can be derived from having a particular goal (or destination).” Page 130.

E. Ring 42 (Hexagram 42): “The superior man, seeing what is good, imitates it; seeing what is bad, he corrects it.” Page 169.

F. Ring 52 (Hexagram 52): “…--his heart is suffocated by trouble…” Page 188. I Ching/The Book of Change. Translated and edited by John Blofeld. First published 1968 by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc. Copyright © 1965 by George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 2. Rusty’s aversion to his pain: In The Varieties of Religious Experience William James writes “A strange moral transformation has within the past century (early 1900’s) swept over our Western world. We no longer think that we are called on to face physical pain with equanimity. It is not expected of a man that he should either endure it…and to listen to the recital of it makes our flesh creep….The way in which our ancestors looked upon pain as an entrant ingredient of the world’s order and both caused and suffered it as a matter of course portion of their day’s work, fills us with amazement.

“Some men and women, indeed, there are who can live on smiles and the word ‘yes’ forever. But for others (indeed for most), this is too tepid and relaxed a moral climate. Passive happiness is slack and insipid, and soon grows mawkish and intolerable. Some austerity and wintry negativity, some

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roughness and effort, some ‘no no!’ must be mixed in, to produce the sense of an existence with character and texture and power. The range of individual differences in this respect is enormous; but whatever the mixture of yes-es and no-es may be, the person is infallibly aware when he has struck it in the right proportion for him. This he feels is my proper vocation, this is the optimum, the law, the life for me to live. Here I find the degree of equilibrium, safety, calm and leisure, which I need, or here I find the challenge, passion, fight and hardship with which my soul’s energy expires.

“Every individual soul, in short, like every individual machine or organism, has its own best condition of efficiency….

And, it is just so with our sundry souls; some are happiest in calm weather; some need the sense of tension, of strong volition, to make them feel alive and well. For these latter souls whatever is gained from day to day must be paid for by sacrifices and inhibition, or else it comes too cheap and has not zest.” The Varieties Of Religious Experience. Page 253-254.

Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street. New York, New York 10014 USA. (Author’s note: Many items in this book use either ideas or phrases from this William James classic. All future footnotes indicating this usage will simply refer to James’ book as Varieties and ask the reader to assume the above full title and publisher. This story and footnotes herein uses only those items in William James text which are considered “public domain.”)

3.“Mara”: In Buddhism, after Siddhartha reaches enlightenment and realizes the causes of suffering and the means to ending it, he is then tempted by “Mara” (the personification of evil) to keep his insights to himself. op. cit. © Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions/Fifth Edition, Page 145.

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References: Chapter 19, Ed. Of Rusty (Days Two and Three) 1. Professor Ayran, a yakas tree: There is no yakas tree. Aranyakas in Hinduism is the third part of the Vedas, or holy books, which are commonly referred to as the “forest treatises.” It was produced by recluses who went to the forest to meditate on the meaning of life. Vedas literally translated means “breath of the eternal.” op. cit. © Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions/Fifth Edition, Page 82.

2. Sigmund Fir-oyd: (Sigmund Freud) 1856-1939, generally known as the father of modern day psychoanalysis.

3. “You can’t live life backwards, only forwards.” A rearranged quote from Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher who lived from 1813-1855. Exact quote is: “You can only understand life backwards, but life can only be lived forward.”

4. The Skull: Reference to “Gol’gotha” in the Christian Gospel of Matthew referring to “the place of the skull” or “Calvary” which in Latin (calvaria) is the word for skull. In Christian belief, the hill upon which Christ was crucified, and thereby in its theology where the burdens or sins of man were lifted.

“The Skull” in this text also refers to the burdens of the mind.

5. The 14 steps leading up to The Skull: In Jainism, there are 14 stages the soul goes through to obtain enlightenment or liberation. op. cit. © Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions/Fifth Edition, Page 136.

6. Ana Tanas: An anagram of Sanatana. Hinduism’s preferred name is “Sanatana Dharma.” “Sanatana” means eternal. Dharma can be described as religion, but has deeper connotations, including the transcending of self and approaches to societal

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structure in a form corresponding to natural laws. There are numerous deities in Hinduisms and therefore “Ana Tanas” takes on the god or truth of many faces.

7. Saint Treemas: A metaphor for St. Thomas who wrote part of the Gnostic Gospels. The reference to him and other trees as separate chapters from a book refers to the Gnostic Gospels, which were not included in the Christian Bible. An excerpt from St. Thomas’ gospel may explain its exclusion: Christ’s disciples ask Him when the kingdom will come and Christ replies: “The kingdom of the Father will not come by expectation. The kingdom of the Father is spread upon the earth and men do not see it. So look at you now in this sense and the radiance of the presence of the divine is known to me through you.”

When Christ says, “he who drinks from my mouth will become as I am,” He’s talking from a point of view of the divine being in all of us. Therefore, according to St. Thomas, anyone who brings into his life and lives the message of the word is equivalent to Christ. In other words, to touch the presence of this sprit within us we become as Christ is. This concept, according to Thomas, is considered by many Christians as blasphemy. Joseph Campbell discusses this in detail in the book The Power of Myth (page 267) Doubleday/ division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y., 10103/Copyright © 1988 Apostrophe S. Productions, Inc., and Alfred van der Marck Editions.

Quotes from St. Thomas come from St. Thomas Gospel, the gnosis archive/www.gnosis.org and The Gospel of Thomas Homepage: home.epix.net/-miser17Thomas.html 8. “Suspend your disbelief.” As in his essay entitled The Will to Believe, Williams James also asked his scholarly colleagues as he presented the chapters of The Varieties of Religious Experience to “suspend their disbelief,” in an effort to under-

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stand the transformation that spiritual experiences produced in the people which he used as examples in his book. op. cit.

Varieties. General theme in Lecture 1 beginning Page 5.

9. Dave Rig: Anagram of Hinduism’s holy book Rig Veda.

10. Rusty’s experience with the tree named Dave Rig illustrates ideas on the number and wealth of religions and spiritual views from many sources. Here are just a few: A. Diana Eck, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies of Harvard Divinity School. She explains there is a type of necessity in maintaining one’s own faith, yet exploring the paths of others. She believes through this process a true cooperation and relationship can occur. “Uniformity and agreement are not the goals—the goal is to collaborate, to combine our differing strengths for the common good.” In what she calls pluralism, “people must have an openness to the possibility of discovering sacred truths in other religions.” op. cit. © Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions/Fifth Edition Page 469. The above comments are Professor Fisher’s rendition of Professor Eck’s position.

B. Dr. Wangari Maathai, leader of the Green Belt movement in Kenya: “All religions meditate on the Source. And yet, strangely religion is one of our greatest divides. If the Source be the same, as indeed it must be, all of us and all religions meditate on the same Source.” Wangari Maathai speaking at the Oxford Global Survival Conference, quoted in The Temple of Understanding Newsletter, Fall 1988.

C. Here is an interesting connection concerning one theme that permeates nearly all religions and spiritual paths: a. Christian: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto

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you.” Christ. b. Bah’a’i World Faith: “Ascribe not to any soul that which thou wouldst not have ascribed to thee…” Baha’u’llah. c. Judaism: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Leviticus 19:18. d. Buddhism:“…a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?” Samyutta Nikaya v.

353. e. Hinduism: “…do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.” Mahabharata 5:1517. f. Islam: “None of you (truly) believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” Number 13 of Imam “Al-Nawawi’s Forty Hadiths.” g. Shinto: “the heart of the person before you is a mirror. See there your own form.” Ko-ji-ki Hachiman Kasuga. h. Taoism: “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.” Tao Te Ching, Chapter 49. i. Native American Spirituality: “All things are our relatives; what we do to everything, we do to ourselves. All is really One.” Black Elk. j. Yoruba: (Nigeria) “One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts.” k. Google the “Golden Rule” for any religion, spiritual path,

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philosophy and even science. With few exceptions, the concept is virtually universal.

11. Dave Rig says, “There’s a oneness in truth, but it goes by many names.” This comes from a quote from Hinduism’s Rig Veda which says, “The truth is one. Sages know it by many names.”

12. Edgar Rice Burroughs: In the early 1900’s, Burroughs was a pencil sharpener salesman bored to death sitting in a warehouse reading the inane pulp fiction novels of his day. He got sick of them and started writing himself. The Tarzan novels are his best known. So well known, they named a California town after his work—Tarzana.

13. “Ya! Whew is right.” In Hebrew the name for god is “Yahweh,” which is translated as “I Am what I Am,” or “I Will Be What I Will Be” Translation from Occidental Mythology/ The Masks of God by Joseph Campbell, copyright © Joseph Campbell 1964; Page 131. Reprinted by permission of Joseph Campbell Foundation (jfc.org). In addition, the origin of the name “Yahweh” may have come from (hawah), a Semitic root meaning “to be,” “the becoming,” and possibly interpreted as “I am the becoming.”

14. A-1. “Ashpuur” The name Rusty uses for his God is an anagram for Purusha. In Hinduism’s Rig Veda (holy text), Purusha, the primal being is dismembered by the gods and from this dismemberment the cosmos were made. His mind became the moon. His eye, the sun. His breath, the wind.” op. cit. © Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions/Fifth Edition, Page 85.

A-2. Some may find Rusty’s dismemberment of his God Ashpuur inappropriate and even disturbing, but it does depict the distinct dividing line between East (Oriental) and West (Oc-

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cidental) spiritual theology. In Western thought, God creates the universe and man apart from Himself, in other words— God is an ideal from which man is separated and must reconcile himself with in order to have a relationship for eternal bliss. In primal Eastern creation mythology, the supreme ideal (God as the Western World discerns it) divides its “Self” into two and through mystical reproduction creates the world and its inhabitants, which proposes God is not separate but within all things. The concepts can be found in Chapter One, section II called “The Shared Myth of the One that Became Two” in op. cit © Joseph Campbell ’s 1962 Oriental Mythology, reprinted with permission of Joseph Campbell Foundation (jcf. org.) Page 9.

In Varieties on page 379 William James quotes John Caird in what could be an effort to understand this division of spiritual thought as it deals with the concept of the “ideal.” Caird states, “…the essential characteristic of religion (spirituality) as contrasted with morality (is) that it changes aspiration into fruition, anticipation into realization; that instead of leaving man in the interminable pursuit of a vanishing ideal, it makes him the actual partaker of a divine or infinite life. Whether we view religion…as the surrender of the soul to God, or as the life of God in the soul—in either aspect it is of its very essence that the Infinite has ceased to be a far-off vision, and has become a present reality. The very first pulsation of the spiritual life…is the indication that the division between the Spirit and its object has vanished, that the ideal has become real, that the finite has reached its goal and become suffused with…the life of the Infinite. John Caird, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, London and New York, 1880, pages 243-250, and 291-299, much abridged.

B. Eknath Easwaran writes in his introduction to his translation of The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu holy text) that in Sankhya philosophy (“whose practical counterpart is the school of

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meditation called Yoga”) Purusha means “spirit,” or the true self within us, which is “beyond all change, the same in every creature.” The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Eknath Easwaran, 2nd edition. © 1985, 2007 by the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation/Box 256, Tomales, CA 94971-0256, USA. Printed in Canada by Nilgiri Press,Pages 37-38.

15. Rusty’s belief that he might have a crack at a new life: In his postscript to Varieties, William James sums up his classic by stating it is the ideal we seek—something larger, greater than ourselves and believed that was as much as a mystery as all the parts that grew from it. But, adds, “…we can experience union with this something larger …and in that union find our greatest peace.” He sums it up with a quote from Edmund Gurney: “For practical life at any rate, the chance of salvation is enough. No fact in human nature is more characteristic than its willingness to live on a chance. ‘the existence of the chance makes the difference between a life of which the keynote is resignation and a life of which the keynote is hope.’” op. cit, Varieties (Page 441). Edmund Gurney quote from Gurney’s book Tertium Quid. 1887 (Page 99)

References: Chapter 21, Origins of Hate 1. The origins of hate: William James states that once understood, however anyone wishes to describe it, the horrors of evil of life are indisputable reality and may be (paraphrased)…the best key to life’s significance, and possibly the only eye-opener to the deepest levels of truths. Quote from the ‘Sick Soul’ chapter in Varieties, op. cit. Page 141.

2. Love spelled backwards: “evol” is not a word, but a prefix to the Latin word “evolvere.” The bulk of the definition given comes from the Oxford English Dictionary.

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3. Rusty’s obvious disgust over his own hatred and yearning for a sense of goodness: William James calls this phenomenon “a craving for a second birth.” Leo Tolstoy, whom James used as an example of a well-to-do man suffering through grave spiritual doubt, explained it as “a thirst for God,” and ended his searching and internal dilemma with the conclusion that “Life is God” or God is what life is. op. cit, Varieties. “The Divided Self” chapter, Page 159.

4. Within the dizzy muddle of spiritual doubt and confusion, James states, “…the deliverance must come in as strong a form as the complaint, if it is to take effect…” That involves, he says, “miracles and supernatural operations” simply because the constitutions of some people need them.” op. cit. Varieties.

Page 140.

References: Chapter 22, Ed. of Rusty Rootless (Day Four & Five) 1. Reference to Father Flanagan’s Boys Town, Nebraska (just outside Omaha) now called Girls & Boys Town: Since 1917 it has mushroomed into 18 sites in 15 states and Washington D.C. Girls and Boys Town has provided direct care to more than 35,000 children each year and its outreach program helps over one million kids annually. “There are no bad boys (and girls)” was Father Flanagan’s inspiration that began the home for orphaned and wayward children.

2. Denel’s explanation of forgiveness: This a rework of the C.S. Lewis phrase: “In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people’s we do not accept them easily enough.

As regards my own sin it is a safe bet (though not a certainty) that the excuses are not really so good as I think; as regards

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other men’s sin against me it is a safe bet (though not a certainty) that the excuses are better than I think.” op. cit. © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1949. From “On Forgiveness” in The Weight of Glory, Page 181-182

References: Chapter 23, The Spark 1.A. Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel: The Sistine Chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV who had the old Cappella Magna restored between 1477-1480.

Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling frescoes between 1506-1508 and completed the work in 1512.

In the 1980’s church officials began more than a decade-long effort to restore the frescoes, which were deteriorating. The restoration came under much controversy not only concerning that it was being done, but how it was being done.

B. The comment concerning the backdrop of God resembling the shape of the human skull comes from physician Frank Lynn Meshberger who in 1990 published an article about it in the Journal of the American Medical Association. He said the shape behind God in the panel was an anatomically accurate picture of the human brain. In 2006, author Charles Westbrook published a novel entitled The Kabalyon Key, which makes a connection between the Creation of Adam and the Gnostic view of God—in simple terms that God is of the mind. Note also that Adam in Hebrew literally means “man” or Adama “earth.”

2.ASHE (Ashe process described in Chapel restoration): In Yoruba Religion “Ashe” is the name given to the energy which links all beings. Yorubans believe the world is a lace-work of interconnecting bonds between all beings that are joined by this energy. Although the ASHE process described in the nar-

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rative is fictional, a restoration of the Sistine Chapel’s frescoes was completed by meticulous restorative processes in the later part of the 20th century as described in an earlier footnote.

References: Chapter 25, Ed. of Rusty Rootless (Days Six and Seven) 1. “Rusty nodded aimlessly into the wild confusion of violent mood swings”: In the Jewish and Christian holy texts, when Cain killed his brother Abel, Cain strayed off to the Land of Nod. He was not banished there by God, but went there of his own accord. “Nod” is a Hebrew word, which in the context of the story can be interpreted as entering into a ceaseless state of mind of restless wandering and indecision or moving away from the presence of God. 2. Sigmund: “…everybody and everything are not your problem.” In Varieties, William James frequently quotes a study from Dr. E.D. Starbuck entitled Psychology of Religion. In stating a goal of the religious experience, James uses this quote from Starbuck: “The essential thing in adolescent growth is bringing the person out of childhood into the new life of maturity (personal responsibilities) and personal insights.”

(James is suggesting here that the state of spiritual experiences involves a process of growing up.) op. cit. Varieties, Page 171.

Psychology of Religion, pages 224-262.

3. “Always the calm student be.” Self control, discovering the focal point of peace within ourselves and the means to attain it are recurring themes in all spiritual paths. One example comes from a central theme in Buddhist doctrine—that of learning to ‘still the mind.” The mind in this doctrine is described as invisible and treacherous. In Buddhism there is a beautiful con-

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cept of disciplining the restless mind using an analogy of a still pond. It says only when the mind becomes this still pond can the true nature of all things be seen and therefore situations allowed to take their natural course. It says that rare things will then come to this pool to drink—strange and wonderful things will come and go, but the mind will be still. This cements a basic Buddhist tenet claiming we suffer because of our striving to grasp onto the world which is always in a constant state of flux. Still pond concept from Achaan Chah, meditation master, Wat Pa Pong, Thailand. From Achaan Chah in A Still Forest Pool, Jack Kornfield and Paul Breiter, eds., Wheaton, Illinois: Theosophical Publishing House, 1985. Also used in op. cit. © Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions/Fifth Edition, page 152.

4. Rusty: “Do I always have to be starting over?” Rework of a line in Thornton Wilder’s play The Skin of Our Teeth where Sabina (the eternal seductress maid) is frustrated at experiencing an end of a war in the wake of numerous other calamities and is forced to start her life over again. In an aside to the audience she states: “That’s all we do—Always beginning again!

Over and over again. Always beginning again.” The aside to the audience is rhetorical and the underlying impression left is humanities resiliency and willingness to go forward when faced with tragedy. Copyright © 1942 Thornton Niven Wilder—2003 Tappan Wilder. Perennial Classics Edition 1998.

HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 10 E. 53 St., New York, NY, 10022. Act III—Page 107 5. Ashpuur says, “Bizarre things happen with each step toward a new awareness,” and Ashpuur will “handle the timetable” of removing Rusty’s defects. In Varieties, William James gives numerous examples (mostly Christian in origin) of what are commonly known as “sudden conversion experiences.” James contends these sudden conversions come only after what he

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calls an incubation period where the person either consciously or subconsciously wrestles in his mind with the spiritual facts at hand. Chapter “Conversion,” op. cit. Varieties. Beginning Page 163.

6. Mather: “Ah the Who-Dun-It story of the ages that begs to know who, what, where and why it was done.” An intriguing allegory from Buddhist doctrine is the story about a man who is shot by an arrow. Rather than pulling out the arrow and beginning his healing, the man spends all his time wondering who shot the arrow; what area the arrow was shot from; what type of a bow was used to shoot the arrow, etc. In the meantime, he died. In other words, he spends all his time on trying to figure out what was done to him rather than concentrating on what will heal his wound. Story from: op. cit. © Mary Pat Fisher, Living religions/Fifth Edition; Page 148.

7. Mather to Rusty: “…the only way to settle the matter is simply to ask the offender.” Rusty is struggling with forgiveness. As C.S. Lewis writes, “To believe in the forgiveness of sins is not nearly so easy as I thought.” Lewis notes the importance of stating the offense when it deals with both our self and others, for if there is no offense…“if one was not really to blame then there is nothing to forgive.” One must look eye to eye at the transgression and transgressor, “seeing it in all its meanness and malice and nevertheless being wholly reconciled to the man who has done it…killing every taste of resentment in your own heart to humiliate or hurt him…. That and that only is forgiveness.” The reason being, according to Lewis in Christian theology is “forgive us our trespasses as (when) we forgive those that trespass against us.” Lewis states, “we are offered forgiveness for our transgression on no other terms— no exceptions.” op. cit. © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1949, The Weight of Glory, Chapter “On Forgiveness,” Pages 177-183.

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8. Rusty: “There’s war in everyone’s heart.” John: “…Until we find a means to end it.” This is an underlying theme in nearly all of Joseph Campbell’s life study of the history of religion and spiritual paths. Campbell stated the recurring theme simply as finding a means of instruction for ourselves that places us in the presence of the divine; to discover what we hold sacred and by so doing not only experience the end to our own personal war with the world as it is, but through this experience discover what ignites our bliss within a purposeful life. Also inherent in this theme is the example this new life presents to the world. Sharing the experiential fruits of our faith through the life that we live then becomes much different than demanding that others use the exact means we have used to achieve it. Only if our life itself is really that attractive, will others seriously inquire about the means by which we attained it.

9. Mather to Rusty: “In this forest we do not have a diagram of US, just an awe of Gracey.” Joseph Campbell writes, “The messages of the great teachers—Moses, the Buddha, Christ, Muhammad—differ greatly. But their visionary journeys are much the same.” Campbell called them all “universal heroes”…who went on their spiritual quest and brought their “message from afar. These heroes of religion came back (from their quest) with the wonder of God, not with a blueprint of God.” The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell © 1988 by Apostrophe S Productions, Inc. and Alfred van der Marck Editions./Anchor Books. Published by Doubleday, a divisions of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103. Pages 172-173.

References: Chapter 26, Trials and Treebulations 1. Ian Casder: “Casder” is anagram for “sacred” or “I am sa-

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cred.” The gang had taken what was sacred—life.

2.Dan Dormage: Anagram for Armageddon. Though widely interpreted by many, generally it is the final and conclusive battle between the forces of good and evil in the Christian bible. Revelations 16:14.

3. Rusty finally falling into his father’s arms. Image of a paraphrased quote William James used from William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army: “The only thing an outcast needs is to know someone cares.” op. cit. Varieties, page 175.

4. Mather meditating on his own death. In some strains of Buddhism meditating on one’s own death is done for the reasons explained in Mather’s response.

5. Artus Norber: Rusty Rootless’ real name: “Artus” is an Anagram for “Sutra,” in Pali (the literary Indo –Aryan language of Buddhist texts and a related language of earlier Indian inscriptions). “Sutra” literally means a string upon which jewels are strung—or dialogue of the teacher. In yoga, sutras are terse spiritual sayings. op. cit. © Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions/ Fifth Edition, glossary, page 499. Also, “Pali”: The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1993 Edition; © Oxford University Press Inc., New York. Editor, Lesley Brown.

Page 2076.

References: Chapter 28, Half In, Half Out 1.On the hard: Sailing term for a boat sitting on land.

2.Wakan Tanka: Lakota Sioux name for the Great Spirit, roughly interpreted as the “Great Mysterious.”

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3.Harney Peak: Spiritually considered by the Lakota Sioux to be the center of the universe.

4. The Lakota Sioux colors for the cardinal virtues: http:// www.gypsey.mavericsa.co.za/pdf/general/ifyoudare/native-american-healing.pdf References: Chapter 29, Fear in the Forest 1. Socra-trees’ Treepublic quote is from philosopher and scientist Rene Descartes (1596-1650): “Change our desires rather than the order of the world.”

2. Fear as a bumbling bully: “Work out your deliverance with fear and trembling.” The actual phrase is from St. Paul in the Christian Bible who said, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Philippians 2-12.

3. “Oh, It could have been…” From Francis Bret Harte. The poetic phrase: “Of all words of tongue or pen, the saddest are, it might have been.”

4. Ken Wiagan: an anagram for “awakening.” Thayer had no children of his own, but married a widow with a child whom Thayer treated as his own. Since this novel is fictional, I used an imaginary last name of Wiagan for Thayer’s closest living relative in the will depiction.

References: Chapter 30, Where Technology Meets the Tree 1. Dan Pauish: Anagram left for your own unraveling.

2. T. (Trisha) Tripis: Trisha is anagram for “Ishtar.” A descrip-

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tion of this Mesopotamian goddess, dating from sometime between the eighteenth and seventh centuries BCE: She was known as the Lady of Heaven who rendered all decisions. She was the goddess of all things. She listened to all prayers and petitions. She was known as a compassionate goddess who loved righteousness—“the one who walked in terrible Chaos and brought life by the Law of Love; And out of Chaos brought us harmony.” Female deities to describe the mystery of a supreme being have been common throughout history from Danu in ancient Indian to Great Spider Woman of the Pueblo people of North America. Primary source for quote from: Merline Stone in When God was a Woman, San Diego, California; Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1976 p.x. Overall description taken from, op. cit. © Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions/ Fifth Edition, page 38.

3. “Hexagram 57”: Concept of submission included in I Ching/ The Book of Change—an ancient Chinese text. Through geometrical patterns, the text reveals a wisdom, which is the foundation of most Eastern thought based on what is surmised as the immutable laws of change. Hexagram 57 is titled “Sun Willing Submission, Gentleness, Penetration.” Commentary on the text includes: “In carrying out the will of heaven, the utmost submissiveness is required.” Page 197. I Ching, translated and edited by John Blofeld. First published 1968 by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc. Copyright © 1965 by George Allen & Unwin Ltd. 4. “b-e-12-13’: From Ecclesiastes in Jewish holy text and Christian bible, Chapter 12-verse 13: “The end of the matter… Keep God’s commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

5. Brad Barnham: Last name anagram for “ Brahman,” which in Hinduism means the “breath behind all of existence” or the

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“Supreme Reality.” op. cit. Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions/ Fifth Edition, page 87.

6. Vanna RI: Name for computer is anagram for Nirvana, which in Buddhism is the state of personal enlightenment—a state when greed, hatred and delusion are eliminated and a person is released from the cycle of death and rebirth.

7. “Divine idea”: Ralph Waldo Emerson called man a “divine idea” in his essays entitled Emerson’s Essays: a Selection; T. Nelson & Sons, Ltd. Page 10.

8. Theme of Big Kahuna: Theme of letter comes from William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience. In his chapter on Saintliness and elsewhere throughout his book, James gives themes concerning those who undergo a spiritual conversion experience. James states these similar themes are easy to find because they stand out in all religions. He includes experiences (although limited) beyond the Christian realm, i.e., Stoicism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Earlier in his book, he used Tolstoy as an example of a conversion experience. Tolstoy’s experience had no traditional religious undertones other than “the themes” which led him to write the book entitled Resurrection, which dealt with a type of spiritual regeneration or opening of a loving spirit within Tolstoy himself.

It is possible that if James were writing a similar book today he would include a wider range of spiritual movements which have the principle themes of love and kindness as their basic foundation with his book at this time perhaps more aptly titled “The Varieties of Spiritual Experience.” Those themes listed in James’ (op. cit) Varieties are as follows: (Pages 231237) A. Charity and brotherly love.

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B. Spiritual emotions become habitual center of person’s energy.

C. An attention to an ideal power—an entity that enlarges one life—a type of reality of the unseen.

D. An unshakable conviction to this spirit or ideal with whom humans can communicate.

E. All engulfed in this spirit or ideal meet all they can imagine of goodness, truth and beauty, and see this spirit or ideal’s footprints everywhere in nature.

F. A personal friendly continuity of connection to this spirit or ideal and a willingness to surrender one’s life to it.

G. An immense elation and freedom as the outlines of the confining selfhood melt down.

H. A shifting of the emotional center from self towards loving and compassion for others.

9. James states these inner changes due to the conversion experience have the following practical consequences: A. Some form of Asceticism: Self-surrender and finding positive pleasure in sacrifice.

B. A feeling of enlargement of life where old fears and anxieties leave and blissful equanimity takes their place. As James puts it, “Come heaven, come hell, it makes no difference now!”

C. Purity: Sensitiveness to spiritual discord is enhanced along with cleansing of existence from brutal and sensual elements becoming imperative. Contact with such elements are avoided.

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A spiritual consistency is deepened.

D. Charity: Tenderness for fellow creatures is increased. “The saint loves his enemies, and treats loathsome beggars as his brothers.”

E. Those on the ideal or spiritual path stick out plainly because they are so different from the average world. “The path of the just is a shinning light.” In other words the path of the unjust is not.

F. Happiness comes to the person “ready made,” as a gift.

G. Loss of personal independence, which man so unwillingly gives up.

H. Produces the disappearance of all fear from one’s life. An indescribable feeling of inner security (beyond oneself yet within oneself), which can only be experience, but once experienced never forgotten.

I. Nothing can hurt one who is within the will of this spirit or ideal. A concept that there is a purpose behind all things. The result then becomes to seek this purpose.

10.In his studies James also found themes in religions which separates us from this spirit or ideal: A. Self seeking in any form. We can’t see the ideal in others if all we are thinking about is ourselves.

B. Sensuality in all its forms. op. cit. Varieties.

11. Concerning Brad—“An agnostic gone good.” This introduces the question whether it is possible for an atheist or ag-

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nostic to have a life changing spiritual experience. It seemingly butts up against the quote from Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book quote stating, “Who are you to say there is no God?”(Page 56)—at least for those who are dealing with addictions. I make no argument here one way or the other, but simply direct the reader’s attention to a book entitled Waiting/A Nonbeliever’s Higher Power by Marya Hornbacher. Ms. Hornbacher’s book details her own heart wrenching experiences of discovering the spirit of goodness within herself and by so doing curbing her addiction as a person who does not believe in a personal deity. Her book was published by Hazelden Press, a highly respected addiction recovery organization.

References: Chapter 31, Paradox’s Mystery 1. “The passion that hounds us gallops on the bark of our questions,” and (comment to Phil by Trisha) “the whole point is not to arrive at our destination, but to reside within it.”

Father Phil is about to embark into the mystery of faith while still clinging to his intellect as a means to find that state of being described by many names, i.e. revelation, enlightenment, transcendence, etc. William James addresses this dilemma in stating the intellect is not necessarily a good tool of choice in this search. As he states quite pointedly, “Reason (and logic) finds arguments for its own convictions.” Given one is seeking (a change or higher state of consciousness), James invokes the words of Benjamin Paul Blood who states it is futile to define this mystical state with a logical definition, “for mere logic every question contains its own answer—we simply fill the hole with the dirt we dug out.” (Example given: why is two plus two four? Because four is two plus two.) Blood states “Ordinary philosophy (and reason and logic) are like a hound hunting his own trail. The more he hunts the farther he has to go, and his nose never catches up with his heels, because it is

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forever ahead of them. Blood contends this truth within us has always been there. “The truth is that we travel on a journey that was accomplished before we set out, and the real end of philosophy is accomplished, not when we arrive at, but when we remain in our destination (being already there)—which may occur vicariously in this life when we cease our intellectual questioning.” It is interesting to note that most spiritual paths contain prayers and mantras which are continuously repeated in a form of meditation aimed toward achieving a type of non-thinking stillness to the mind, which for many allows or invites the experience of a higher level of consciousness or truth to exhibit itself. op. cit. Varieties. Page 325-326. And, The Anaesthetic Revelation and the Gist of Philosophy, Amsterdam, N.Y., 1874, pp. 35,36. A pamphlet in which Blood is quoting Xenos Clark, a contemporary philosopher of his time.

2. Trisha meditating on the space between the hands of God and Adam: Visual and tangible aids are used in many spiritual paths to help in prayer and meditation. In Catholicism, the Crucifix and the Rosary; In Native American spirituality, the Grandfather Rocks used in sweat lodge ceremonies and items in nature itself; and In Buddhism the visual aids are called “Mandalas,” which are “A symmetrical image, with shapes emerging from a center used as a meditational focus.” (Mandalas) From Glossary, op cit. © Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religions/Fifth Edition, page 497.

3. The “owl conversation”: A very close facsimile of the conversation between Alice and the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll’s book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

(Alice) “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where—” said Alice.

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“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, First published 1865, Published in Puffin Books 1946; Penguin Group, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014 USA. Page 66 & 67.

4. “If this be chaos give it form.” This is a reworked phrase from William James concerning the essence of the spiritual experience. The irony, as James states, is when a person has such an experience, they find it so mysterious and inexplicable, the experience itself is incapable of being totally captured in anything other than metaphorical explanations. op. cit. Varieties.

Page 348.

5. Constant state of flux and change. Previously Father Phil needed to get a grip on everything. As mentioned earlier in Buddhist thought, the reason we suffer is because we try to grasp onto a world and pieces of it are always in a constant state of change. One of the last phrases of the Buddha before he died was: “All things are impermanent,” and therefore a detachment of worldly things is in order to move toward enlightenment in the Buddhist concept. It’s interesting to note that this detachment is suggested in many other spiritual paths and remains a recurring theme in many religions.

6.Wandering Vine: William James was not immune to noticing the paradox and the mystery of the above concept of “same, but different” as it related to spiritual experiences, mainly because it is an individual/personal experience. The paradox is that it brings together in fellowship those who conform to a set of principles, and yet at its individual level, each exercises their nonconformity in the fashion in which those instructions are delivered and absorbed within each individual heart.

A right no doubt, God given if one is so inclined to believe. op. cit. Varieties. “Conclusions” Chapter, Pages 407-441.

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References: Chapter 32, Father Phil’s Quest 1. Poem at chapter heading is by Alfred, Lord Tennyson except for obvious changes in pronouns. Poem is as follows: “The great good god looked down and smiled/ and counted each his loving child/ for monk and Brahmin, Turk and Jews,/ loved him through the gods they knew.”

2. “…armchair quarterbacking of faith.” Rework of quote from Emerson’s essay entitled “Self Reliance.” “We are parlor soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born….God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance, which does not deliver.

Believe that man is a divine idea and it is so. But first one must assume the position. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.” Emerson’s Essays: a Selection, © Ralph Waldo Emerson/Publisher T. Nelson & Sons, Ltd/Great Britain. Page 10,11,28.

3. “…into the center of Creation’s vital force”: Claire Sylvia, a heart/lung transplant recipient gives a beautiful rendition of this spiritual force: “Anyone who receives a new heart is getting a big ball of subtle energy. Ancient cultures have known about subtle energy throughout history, and have viewed it as the vital force of all creation. The indigenous peoples of the world have more than a hundred different names for this force, and unlike us, they have always placed their faith in its power. The Chinese call it chi. The Japanese call it ki. In Hawaii it’s known as Mana. Mana is the spirit of life itself….

No matter how materialistic our modern world has become, something keeps tugging at our hearts and drawing us back to the energy that brings us life, unites us in love and leaves our physical body when we die. Physicists call this energy ‘the

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fifth force.’ It’s the same energy that keeps messing up the “controlled” experiments of scientist and accounts for “spontaneous remissions” in so-called terminal cases.” A Change of Heart: a memoir. © 1997 Claire Sylvia with William Novak.

Published in Canada by Little, Brown and Company (Canada) Limited Printed in the United States of America. Page 225.

4. “…muddled thought dissolves into pure rest and assurance.”

A. Pure rest. William James explains the spiritual experience as an occurrence when one senses or feels a unique calmness mixed with an exhilarating freedom between both who we are upon this earth and our link to this force, energy or power greater than ourselves. As James puts it, “When mystical activity is at its height, we find consciousness possessed by the sense of being at once excessive and identical with the self: great enough to be God; inferior enough to be me.” op. cit.

Varieties. Page 426.

B. “Assurance.” James states there is an inherent spiritual notion of security offered by a belief in a power greater than ourselves. Bluntly stated, “Come hell or high water…it’s there.”

James explains: “…the whole universe of beings to whom the God is present, are secure in his parental hands. There is a sense, a dimension, they (religious men and women) are sure, in which we are all saved, in spite of the gates of hell and all adverse terrestrial appearances. God’s existence is the guarantee of an ideal order that shall be permanently persevered. This world may indeed, as science assures us, some day burn up or freeze; but if it is part of his order, the old deals are sure to be brought elsewhere to fruition, so that where God is, tragedy is only provisional and partial, and shipwreck and dissolution are not the absolutely final things…. That the God with whom, starting from the hither side of our own extra-marginal self, we come at its remoter margin into commerce should

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be the absolute world-ruler is of course a very considerable over-believe. Over belief as it is, though, it is an article of almost every one’s religion.” op cit. Varieties. “Conclusions” chapter, pages 433-435.

5. Phil immersing himself in a spiritual experience via alternate paths than the one to which he was accustomed: William James: “One can never fathom an emotion (he is speaking of a religious or spiritual experience as a life altering emotional experience here) or divine its dictates by standing outside of it.” Very simply put, one cannot experience or understand a spiritual occurrence unless one is wholly willing to participate in it. op. cit. Varieties, page 276.

6. “getting his hands dirty:” From William James in his chapter on saintliness: “Purity, we see in the object-lesson is not the one thing needful; and it is better that a life should contract many a dirt-mark, than forfeit usefulness in its efforts to remain unspotted. op. cit. Varieties, page 300.

7. Concerning Dr.Hypo’s discussion on brain chemistry and the explanation of quantum physics: A. Brain chemistry: Concept from Candace B. Pert Ph.D., former research professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine where she conducted pioneering work in area of Psychoneuroimmunology. Her books include: Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine, © Candace B. Pert, Simon and Schuster, 1988; and, Everything you Need to Know to Feel Go(o)d, © Candace B. Pert, Hayhouse, Inc. 2006, where Dr. Pert states we are biologically “hardwired for bliss”—We simply need to tap into our own body’s unlimited natural ability for living in joy and connecting to the divine.

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B. If you want a short course on Science and Religion with theology, quantum physics, brain chemistry mix together, pick up the DVD entitled: What the Bleep Do We Know?. There are two versions. The longer one runs nearly six hours.

8. “(Rituals) his (Father Phil’s) Western mind could neither comprehend nor distinguish the minute nuances of significant differences.” Many times our Western minds think we can pretty much sum up everything after an ample inspection, and it befuddles us when we’ve tried and failed—many times not knowing that we have. Which is another way of saying we think we are understanding, yet we are not because of a subtlety beyond the scope of our own conditioning. Language is a good example, particularly the tonal languages of the Far East.

I taught English as a second language to Hmong refugees. In numerous instances, their language can put the same sound in different tones, the sound having significant different meanings depending on the tone used with it. With several of these differing tones of the same sound, I literally listened closely for years and was never capable of discerning the difference between them. The whole process was outside my conditioned bailiwick. The same holds true, for example, in translations of Islam’s Qur’an. The Qur’an is written in Arabic with such powerful prose, almost at times akin to poetry, that through a translation we may get the gist of it, but not the soul of it due to the subtleties of its inspiration set within a different culture.

The interesting point made here comes from His Holiness The Dalai Lama. In very delicate and respectful tones, he makes the observation that we in the Western world have a tendency to label and categorize things—lock them up neatly into understandable boxes. She’s bi-polar. He suffers from anxiety disorder. Jim’s a winner. John’s a loser. The Dalai Lama’s point is there are nearly seven billion people on this planet, each of whom has millions of different individual experiences. Can we really stick a label on all these subtle differences

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and box them into neat little categories? No doubt it may be impossible to do so in as many incidents as we think it is possible. And, where it is not, maybe looking outside our box is preferable in searching for an answer. An interpretation of The Art Of Happiness. Audio CD by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, read by Howard C. Cutler M.D. with Ernest Abuba. © 1998, Simon & Schuster, Inc. (Audio Division). 1230 Avenue of the Americas/New York, NY 10020.

9. “Lia Hash” is, in part, an anagram of a revered shaykh (spiritual master) from India named Hajji Waris Ali Shah. He lived from 1819-1905 and was loved by people of all religions. He believed that within an understanding of Islam is an understanding of all religions. Accordingly, he said, “All are equal in my eyes.” Interesting to note for the western world is that Islam contains many of the same rituals as other major religions.

The five pillars of its faith are— 1.Shahadah: proclamation of the single unity of God “There is no god but God...” 2. Daily prayers. 3. Zakat: Alms giving. 4. Fasting. And 5. Hajj: Pilgrimage to Mecca. Jihad: Though many times misunderstood in the western world as ‘holy war,” as stated in Living Religions/Fifth Edition, page 388: “the Greater Jihad, Muhammad is reported to have said, is the struggle against the lower self. It is the internal fight between wrong and right, error and truth, selfishness and selflessness, hardness of heart and all-embracing love.” Op. cit. Mary Pat Fisher, Living Religion/Fifth Edition. Page 379 for Hajji Waris Ali Shah. Primary source in Living Religions for definition of “Greater Jihad” is Hadith of the Prophet, as quoted in Fakhr al-Din Al-Razi, Tafsir al-Fakhr al-Razi, 21 vol., Mecca: al-Kaktabah al-Tijariyyah, 1990, vol 7, page 232.

10. As an addendum to the above concerning Father Phil’s quest beyond his own faith, I quote from an article by Fr. John Dietzen from Peoria, IL. in The Compass, a Catholic newspa-

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per. Fr. Dietzen writes: “…the (Catholic) church has repeated its position that the great non-Christian religions represent part of the sincere effort of people everywhere to find answers to the huge, haunting questions about life and death and God….These efforts… represent the work of the Holy Spirit in the world….The Second Vatican Council (in the) Declaration on the Relationship of the church to Non Christian Religions…declares that, while the church always remembers its mission to proclaim that the fullness of religious life is found in Christ, it also looks with sincere respect on those ways of conduct and of life, those rules and teachings which, though differing in many particulars from what she holds and sets forth, nevertheless often reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all people….

All should take pains (that) nothing is taught out of harmony with…the gospel….which is a spirit of love and respect, not of hate and rejection.” The church’s theology of salvation/Must you believe in Jesus, or go to hell? © The Compass, P.O. Box 23825, Green Bay, WI 54305 11. Ramadan: A month-long period of worship in Islam. Followers fast during the daylight hours, are called to prayer day and night, and reflect on the meaning of faith in their life. The end of Ramadan is celebrated with a feast.

12. “A place where the soul knows no deformity or separation.” A reworked line from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Actual quote is: “The soul will not know either deformity or pain.” op. cit. Emerson’s Essays: a Selection. Page 60 in chapter entitled “Spiritual Laws.”

13-A.“The gift of tears…” In Varieties James explains an experience of spiritual awareness as a type of “melting moods,” granting the “so called gift of tears,” explained as a rejoicing

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in a sweet release of our real or perceived burdens. James also states that “when this beating (spiritual awareness) comes either gradually or by crisis, it comes in grace and “exalted affections” to stay. op. cit. Varieties, page 228.

13-B. Phil coming to the crossroads of the gods—the place of awareness that we are not separated and all hearts are connected: Many times in the western world we tend to shun the “gift of tears” as a spiritual experience. Except for the most hardened—and even maybe they in their sleep—most all of us have experienced these soothing, calming, burden lifting tears. It happens when we see a heart wrenching story on TV, experience an unexpected kindness, or receive a heartfelt appreciation and tears begin to flow. Within this experience is an inescapable, gripping sense that there is not only an unlimited expanse of the human heart, but a vital communion and connection with every other human heart on the planet. It is so powerful that only tears of joy can express it. The sadness in our culture, at times, is we hold these tears back. Most of us have seen it. Most of us have done it. One wonders whether we might want to rethink this watery cup of communion that links us all.

14-A. “Ho!”: In the Native American Sioux language the word “Ho” (hohg) is used to express the importance of a statement by another person—an acknowledgement or affirmation of the importance of its truth. It is very similar in nature to the word “Amen,” in the Judeo-Christian tradition or the “hear, hear!” expression used frequently in the 19th century. http://www. barefootsworld.net/lakotalexicon.html#h 14-B. “Mitakuye Oyasin” A Lakota Sioux phrase meaning: “to all my relatives.” Its reference is not just to personal linage, but indicates a relationship to all living things and all items upon Mother Earth.

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15. “One size fits all.” James uses a similar analogy concerning the spiritual experience. His point to answering the question is: “What is the suitable horse?” His point is there is none. It depends on for what purpose each individual is going to use the horse. Each person has a different use for it, and therefore requires a different horse. The analogy then is that all people use God differently—in the way we need God that is consistent with our principles and concepts of God. op. cit. Varieties, page 315.

16. “We have different taste buds for God” and a previous related statement from Father Phil concerning the many different rituals he experienced, some of which he understood and others he could not, “but in all he saw the human thread weaving itself into a communal tapestry.”

At the very best, it may be good to consume the fact that we, with our food as well as with our faith, are tribal and communal in nature. As stated in the text, therein is one key thread of faith. Take, for example, the television program Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern. From wood-devouring mangrove worms to eating insects, he travels the world in search of wayward cuisine which we in the western world think as the program’s title states “bizarre.” In many of these unfamiliar morsels, Zimmern discovers a delightful new taste that expands the appreciation of his palate. In others, he honestly hits a wall of indigestibility. But in either case, he is not only respectful of the tribal dishes and the people who consume them, but also perceptibly elated in this opportunity given him to reach out and personally experience variety outside the familiar to discover what he will. The reason, no doubt being, is that he understands that from these bizarre foods do others receive the very nourishment to their life. All this makes the word “bizarre” a good term for television promotion, when “merely different” would possibly be a more suitable term. At

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this writing, Zimmern is on a new quest called Bizarre Foods America, which will no doubt illustrate the tribal & geographical nature of our own palates here at home.

The point of weaving together the thread of humanity’s hope and faith is that no matter the differences of what we consume or how we define the ingredients of this consumption, we all need this nourishment to live. Hope and faith are no different.

They also need constant nourishment to keep them alive. To what purpose? To truly experience what we say we already know: Everybody knows that we are different, but not so different as we may have thought. Somehow and somewhere in these fragmented lines of beliefs sits a crossroad where the universal needs of the human heart meet and are nourished.

And, there, in all its varied beauty, lays the infinite feast upon the table of the gods for each of us to sample and experience for its flavor and its tang—a banquet so diverse that possibly only heaven itself can consume it in its entirety.

References: Chapter 33, Acts Our Angels Be 1. “Acts our Angels Be”: Line from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem Self Reliance in essay of the same name. op. cit. Emerson’s Essays: a Selection, page 9.

2. “Freed up in him (Phil) a new type of energy…driven to a purpose:” In Varieties, William James speaks of spiritual conversions or life-changing spiritual awareness as a time when there is a dropping of personal burdens. He describes it as a calming of the spirit—the end of anxiousness about the outcome of the day for all items in a life upon the conversion or new spiritual awarenesses are now in the hands of a higher power of goodness greater than oneself. From this, James states we obtain a keen sense of our own usefulness. Though

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James’ examples center mainly upon Christian conversions, he states “all spiritual paths insist on” this theme. As James states it is a “paradise of inward tranquility” where one senses “the potential of development in human souls is unfathomable.” op. cit. Varieties. Page 302.

3. “His God (faith) had grown wider than Phil ever knew possible.” Concerning the spiritual experience, William James writes, “It produces an absolute confidence and peace that no matter what comes they had finally grasped the true hand of help for themselves, which was strengthen inexplicably somehow inside themselves and somehow outside. Life becomes richer, larger, more satisfying…a force is exerted that produces a permanent function.” op. cit. Varieties.

4. “A tree does not eat its own apples…” This concept of duty reaches across numerous spiritual paths. One example from a Hindu text: “Your proper concern is alone the action of duty not the fruit of the action. Cast then away all desire (for fruits) and fear and perform your duty.” Bhagavad Gita.

5. Songbirds: Though many today may disagree with him in Varieties, William James wrote the theme point of all religions is to “harmonize with paternal theism—” a child of the gods type concept. op. cit. Varieties. Page 237.

References: Chapter 34, Conspiracy Theory 1.“An increasing cowardice of this freedom deepened with every dollar she had to guard.” Rework of James quote from Varieties. Concerning achieving a freedom granted through a spiritual experience he writes: “Lives based on having are less free than lives based on doing or being; people subject to the spirit throw away possessions as so many clogs. Only those

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who have no private interests can follow an ideal straight away.

Sloth and cowardice creeps in with every dollar we have to guard.” He also relates this experience as a freedom and satisfaction found in absolute surrender to a higher power other than oneself. With this, he says is “the peace of knowing you are not wanting for earthly things, but living within the spirit.

So long as… a guarantee is clung to—so long is the surrender incomplete, the vital crisis is not passed, fear still stands sentinel, and mistrust of the divine obtains (remains): we hold by two anchors, looking to God, it is true, after a fashion, but also holding by our proper machinations.” “Only when the sacrifice is ruthless and reckless will the higher safety arrive.” op. cit. Varieties. Pages 271-272.

2. Trisha’s statement: “All I need I have now.” Numerous spiritual paths guard against gathering items in the material world as a life priority. Two notes of many come from A Course in Miracles, which state: (1)”The world I see holds nothing that I want./ Beyond this world there is a world I want.” (Lessons 129, Page 230) and (2) “I will not value what is valueless,/And only what has value do I seek…” (Lesson 133, Page 241). Copyright © 1975,1985, FOUNDATION FOR INNER PEACE, P.O. Box 635 Tiburon, California 94920.

References: Chapter 36, The Plan 1. Concerning Phil’s worry that the plan may not come off as planned. The idea emulates William James thought in Varieties where he states, “Saintly qualities are indispensable to the world’s welfare….Let us be saints then, if we can—whether or not we succeed. …in our Father’s house are many mansions, and each of us must discover for himself, the kind of religion and the amount of saintship which best comport with what he believes to be his powers and feels to be his truest mission

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and vocation. There are no successes to be guaranteed and no set order to be given to individuals.” Op. cit. Varieties. Page: 317-318 2. Vlad Tepes or Vlad the Impaler. Information taken from copyright © 2002 www.vladtheimpaler.com. Last modified: February 26, 2003.

3. Rwandan genocide. Nearly one million people were killed in Rwanda in the spring of 1994.

References: Chapter 37, Ed. of Rusty Rootless (Day Twelve) 1.Heading quote from Walt Whitman’s poem Leaves of Grass; William James also uses this poem in Varieties as an example of the human spiritual plight: op. cit. Varieties. Page 424.

2-A: First paragraph of chapter is mixture of rewritten phrases from James’ Varieties where on pages 378-379 James quotes from abridged passages of John Caird: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. London and New York 1880, pp 243250, and 291-299, much abridged. Passage is as follows: “But it is the prerogative of man’s spiritual nature that he can yield himself up to a thought and will that are infinitely larger than his own….to live in the atmosphere of the Universal Life….to live no more my own life, but let my consciousness be possessed to and suffused by the Infinite and Eternal life of spirit….it is just in this renunciation of self that I truly gain myself, or realize the highest possibilities of my own nature. It may be said to be the essential characteristic of religion as contrasted with morality, that changes aspirations into fruition, anticipations into realizations; that instead of leaving man in

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the interminable pursuit of a vanishing ideal, it makes him the actual partaker of a divine or infinite life….when we rightly apprehend its significance, is the indication that the division between the Spirit and its object has vanished, that the ideal of (has) become real…”

2-B: “…When one enters into the spiritual life…evil, error, imperfection, do not (any longer) belong to him; they…are already virtually, as they will be actual, suppressed and annulled, and in the very process of being annulled they become the means of spiritual progress. Though he is not exempt from temptation and conflict, (yet) in that inner sphere in which his true life lies, the struggle is over, the victory already achieved…” op cit. Varieties. Pages as indicated above.

3. “By ceasing for a moment to consider his own wants…”

The phrase comes from C.S. Lewis who wrote: “By ceasing for a moment to consider my own wants, I have begun to learn better what I really wanted”—(a welcome into the heart of things.) op. cit. © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1949. The Weight of Glory. Page 39.

4. “Words cannot explain a dream come true.” This concept is threaded throughout William James’ Varieties concerning his review of numerous spiritual experiences. In James’ words: “There are many methods in the mystery. But the details of how it happened cannot be thoroughly explained. What was attained because of it is all that words can capture…There is in the living act of perception always something that shimmers and twinkles and will not be caught.” op. cit. Varieties. Page 206 and 382.

5. “People do not want to merely see the beauty…” From C.S. Lewis quote: “We do not want to merely see beauty...We want…to be united with the beauty…to pass into it.” In other

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words, the deep desire for acceptance is the true paradise of our desire. To be accepted just as we are and to see the beauty of what we are. op. cit. © C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1949. The Weight of Glory. Page 42.

6. Rusty’s feeling of a “new state of existence:” In Varieties, James gives scores of personalized accounts of this spiritual transformation. Here are just a few comments from people James used as examples who had undergone the transformation in his “Conversion-concluded” chapter beginning on 186: 1) “My spiritual vision was so clarified that I saw beauty in every material object in the universe, the woods were vocal with heavenly music.” 2) “My tears of sorrow changed to joy….I wept and laughed alternately. I was as light as if walking on air.” James states in all cases there was a tremendous sense of God (as each defined their God) taking care of those who put their trust in him. On page 383, James sums up this phenomenon: “In the religious sphere, particular, belief that formulas are true can never wholly take the place of personal experience.” op. cit. Varieties. Pages as indicated above.

7. All previous chapters, including this chapter, containing the twelve days of the Education of Rusty Rootless follow the order and general substance of the ubiquitous 12-step programs divined by Bill Wilson and the other founders of the Alcoholic Anonymous program in the 1930’s. The program, which is now world-wide, has expanded outside of AA to include a host of addictions and compulsive disorders. Except for the third step, which allows one to embrace a loving Higher Power of his or her own understanding, all the rest of the steps are generally recurring themes in most of the world’s major religions and spiritual thought. The A.A. Twelve Steps (in general terms) are used with permission of A.A. World Service, yet no item in this text should be considered to imply it is A.A.

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Conference Approved Literature or that A.A. World Service approves with its granted permission of using the Twelve Steps any contents of this text. The A.A. Twelve Steps are as follows: Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3.

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him. 4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves. 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. 6.

Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. 12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the results of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and practice these principles in all our affairs. From AA Big Book, pages 59-60.

8. The name “Sarah”: It has many meanings in different cultures. The name for the story is pieced together from the Hebrew meaning, “Princess,” and a derivative spelling of the name—“Sahar” meaning “dawn.” Research indicates that “Princess” and “Dawn” are fairly common names among numerous and varied cultures.

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References: Chapter 38, Life vs. Grief 1. “For all things there is finality.” Rework of one of Buddha’s final statements before his death: “All things are impermanent,” which in this concept relates to our nature of clinging to things in a constantly changing world. A provocative spiritual offshoot to this comes from Eknath Easwaran when he writes of what is known as the “Perennial Philosophy” in the introduction to his translation of the Hindu holy text, The Bhagavad Gita. Easwaran states there are three spiritual points of human awareness that have occurred “in every age and civilization: (1) there is an infinite, changeless reality beneath the world of change; (2) this same reality lies at the core of every human personality; (3) the purpose of life is to discover this reality experientially: that is, to realize God while here on earth. These principles,” he states, “and the interior experiments for realizing them were taught systematically (in Hinduism) in a tradition which continues unbroken after some three thousand years.” The Bhagavad Gita/ Introduction & Translated by Eknath Easwaran. © 1985, 2007 by The Blue Mountain Center of Meditation/Box 256 Tomales, CA 94971-0256, USA. Page 17.

2. “Don’t dampen your light, dad:” Buddha’s final words to his disciples after a blacksmith had accidentally poisoned him were: “Find the lamp within you.” Also, to paraphrase from his chapter entitled “The Sick Soul,” William James states: The horrors or evils of life are indisputable and possibly the link to the deepest truths. op. cit. Varieties. Page 140-141.

3. “Under heaven, all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.” A phrase written by Lao Tzu in Tao Te Ching around 600 BC. Scholars still debate the authorship and time this Chinese philosophical classic was constructed. It is commonly interpreted as The Book of the Way and Its Virtues.

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The book of maxims and proverbs is fundamental to the Taoist school and Chinese Buddhism also draws many of its concepts from this book’s inspirational thoughts.

4. St. Treemas’ phrase, “That’s why trees give so much and lose so much year after year.” Rework of line from Psalms 22 Verse 26 in Christian Bible. “May your hearts live forever.” Also from Christian Bible Revelations 22:2 of St. John on Patmos: “And the leaves of the trees were for the healing…”

5. “industry of futilitree:” The American prison system is one of our fastest growing industries. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. In the near future, one in every twenty people in America will be incarcerated during his or her lifetime. We spend $146 billion each year on a system where the incarceration rate has more than tripled since 1980. In a 15-state study, over two-thirds of released prisoners were re-arrested within three years. Overall, sixty-seven percent of people who are released from prison, return to prison. A faith-based organization known as Prison Fellowship in the United States has formulated a program that has dramatically dropped this recidivism rate for participating inmates. Through a faith-based process that involves education, job training and post-prison programs, the rate of inmates returning to prison has been dropped to 15-percent. Though successful, the resources to fund such programs are limited.

So far only a few thousand inmates have had a chance to participate in the program, but it has acted as a model for other similar programs that are branching out in the same pattern of aid. This information comes from a 2002 U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics study and a press kit from the Prison Fellowship Newsroom.

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References: Chapter 39, Between Tree & Sea 1. Edward Carpenter’s poem: Carpenter (1844-1929) was a philosopher and poet. He championed many controversial causes and was a forerunner of gay rights issues. Lines from the poem mentioned come from his treatise Towards Democracy, page 362, abridged. William James used the poem within his chapter on “Saintliness” in Varieties, page 271. The entire poem is as follows: “Not by accumulating riches, but by giving away that which you have, Shall you become beautiful; You must undo the wrappings, not case yourself in fresh ones; Not by multiplying clothes shall you make your body sound and healthy, but rather by discarding them…

For a soldier who is going on a campaign does not seek what fresh furniture he can carry on his back, but rather what he can leave behind; Knowing well that every additional thing which he cannot freely use and handle is an impediment.” op. cit. Varieties. Page 271.

References: Chapter 40, The Gulf Steam 1. “We are placed where our deepest gladness and the world’s deepest hunger meet.” The famous quote and concept comes from Frederick Buechner, probably best described as a Presbyterian theologian. He wrote many books which won him numerous honorary doctorates; the National Book Award (1952); The O. Henry Award (1955); and the Critic’s Choice Books Award (1990). Quote from Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, page 95; © copyright, Frederick Buechner 1973,1993; HarperSanFrancisco/A Division of HarperCollinPublishers, 10 East 53 St., New York, NY 10022.

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2.“Loreto” is a fictitious town name for this chapter.

References: Chapter 42, Treeless Two 1. “Ready about. Hard Alee!” A sailing term for quickly turning the boat into and across the nose of the wind, and by doing so swiftly changing the boat’s direction.

References: Chapter 44, Shoot-Out at Oak A. Coral 1.Concerning Astan Prince’s self-inflicted wound and whether he was not killed, but simply defeated, by kindness: The reference travels back to the early Christian church. During the Roman Empire, Christians were forced to worship the emperor Nero, who persecuted Christians in close proximity to the time of Revelations. In 68 AD, with his reign faltering and the Roman senate ordering his execution, Nero committed suicide by stabbing himself in the neck. Rumors abounded after his demise that he had somehow escaped death or even transcended it and would again return and renew his reign of terror.

2. John bows before Oak A. Coral before leaving the forest.

In Buddhism, the Buddha received his enlightenment beneath a tree. After receiving it, Buddha bowed to the tree. With Mather now gone. John bows to his replacement—a new beginning. The bow—an act of humility and respect is an important theme in many spiritual paths and myths. In Christian and Islamic mythology Satan is said to have been an angel who no longer wanted to be a servant and desired to knock God off His throne. In other words, he refused to bow to mankind and therefore was tossed out of heaven. The simple implication being that one who serves God does so by serving mankind. The refusal to bow is literal in Islam’s Qur’an: “The Night Journey” beginning at 17:61, op. cit. N.J. Dawood’s translation, The Koran, Page 201; In the Jewish text, Haggada, “The Falls

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of Satan” is depicted in (Volume 1, Chapter 2); and is stated as a final battle between good and evil in Christian Biblical texts as in “Revelations” 12:1-10.

References: Chapter 45, An Ending 1. Bodhisattva: According to Mahayana Buddhism, this is a person “who has attained enlightenment but abandons nirvana (the endless cycle of rebirth) for the sake of helping all sentient beings in their journey to liberation from suffering.” op. cit. Definition from glossary of Living Religions/Fifth Edition, Mary Pat Fisher, page 494.

References: Chapter 46, A Beginning 1. Trisha’s plan throughout the book. In very simplified story form, Trisha’s plan attempts to loosely follow his series masterpiece The Masks of God by Joseph Campbell. Of his work, Campbell wrote that he believed in the “the unity of the race of man, not only in its biology but also in its spiritual history, which has everywhere unfolded in the manner of a single symphony, with its themes announced, developed, amplified and turned about, distorted, reasserted, and today, in a grand fortissimo of all sections sounding together, irresistibly advancing to some kind of mighty climax, out of which the next great movement will emerge…(but always with the same motifs.)”

The “plan” also attempts to capture Campbell’s ideas in Oriental Mythology where he writes: “The myth of eternal return…displays an order of fixed forms that appear and reappear through all time. (It) represents a miracle of continuous arising that is fundamental to the nature of the universe….It will disintegrate presently in chaos only to burst forth again, fresh as a flower, to recommence spontaneously the inevitable

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course….”

“There is therefore nothing to be gained, either for the universe or for man, through individual originality and effort.

Those who have identified themselves with the mortal body and its affections will necessarily find that all is painful, since everything—for them—must end. But for those who have found the still point of eternity around which all—including themselves—revolves, everything is acceptable as it is; indeed, can ever be experienced as glorious and wonderful. The first duty of the individual, consequently, is simply to play his given role—as do the sun and moon, the various animal and plant species, the waters, the rocks, and the stars—without resistance, without fault; and then, if possible, so to order his mind as to identify it consciousness with the inhabiting principle of the whole.” Oriental Mythology: Page (1) and (3-4). Published

by Penguin Group (USA)) Inc., 373 Hudson St. New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin Inc. 1962. Quotation from Oriental Mythology by Joseph Campbell, copyright © 1962; reprinted by permission of Joseph Campbell Foundation (jcf. org).

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