BY THE LIGHT IN THE TREES part III
Haiku:
In space between time You can find your faith by light in the trees
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By the light in the trees Our church is built with stain glass branches, wild flower pews, beehive pulpits and hymns that blow like music through the cold colored leaves in fall By the light in the trees The word G â&#x20AC;&#x201C; O - D is spelled with letters that have not been written, described by a faith that has not been spoken, and interpreted by a light that shines through the birch and redwoods and oaks and madrones and pines and firs and olive By the light in the trees We show our children a universe that is unfathomable and beautiful and alive and moving-- which holds us in its immense web that connects us to a family of all things By the light in the trees We tell them stories and play games in glowing shafts of radiance By the light in the trees We build cold memorials in ancient olive orchards, celebrations of life in old theatres named after a bird on fire, beach glass alters in old mossy oaks, driftwood shelters with holy bonfires on beaches, burning temples in the black desert nights,
By the light in the trees We sit quietly for hours with our small children and look for blue glass on sunny seashore sands and make
By the light in the trees
up exotic stories how a magic tide brought them from
We sit quietly and tell someone how much
far away places
we love them
By the light in the trees
By the light in the trees
We show our children how to find fairy circles
We walk sadly and tell someone how much
around small mushroom towns, and how to find wild
we miss them
orchards and make daisy chains to hang like garlands over the secret door and place that blue glass as a
By the light in the trees
sacred offering for the fairy princess who lives behind
We help someone, forgive someone, reach out to
the curtain of light
someone, be true for someone who we have never met and will never see again
By the light in the trees We photograph our inspirations, water colors our dreams, illustrate our hopes, sketch our self portraits
By the light in the trees
By the light in the trees
A father stands proudly for his family and holds forth
The reflection of light is revealed by teaching our
to say life sometimes does not easily move on and yet
youth how to build beautiful and sacred things
is filled with mystery we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t understand and dear one, have faith that the earth is still a safe place and
By the light in the trees
my arms are always there to catch you
A community of beautiful people with tattoos and piercings and bikes with no brakes and strumming
By the light in the trees
guitars and songs they write and skateboards they
A mother holds dearly a child to her chest and wraps
ride and cans of paint and journals of notes and
her arms around it with layers of colorful scarves and
sketches of ideas and torn jeans and smiles and hearts
knitted shawls and ancient love and holds forth to say
who do not believe in a system that has a picture of
that even in this cold air your life will be warm and
Sara Palin posing for a nation that confuses religion
bountiful and I will hold you and nurture you and
and state with dogma and politicsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but still feels the
your children and your childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s children
glimmer of faith and connection to that mysterious light shining into their live to be quietly, privately dreamed about in the poetry they live
By the light in the trees We can see divine intervention while we harvest honey By the light in the trees Our children will take their children to the church they build and listen to their prayers at bedtime with stories of moonlight in the window By the light in the trees We feel the guiding spirit of a daughter who is no longer on the temporal plane, Shine down on a moonbeam, Sets us down to rest And quiets our mind With a whisper of one small sacred truth In the space between time The mystery of light through the branches is real
If this is a meditation… the phrases, How well do
When I think of light in the trees my mind
you remember? and Waters Rising produce an ache in
immediately pictures the olive orchard where we held
my chest with their huge loss and sorrow attached.
our memorial for Phoebe. For me the olive orchard is
When I arrive at the phrase Light in the Trees, my
the perfect photograph of light in the trees. The
breath relaxes, my heart pauses, the knot in my
process of building a church; of expressing our faith
stomach unwinds and for a moment I feel a glimmer
and reverence; of showing a devotion to a universe
of hope. As a meditation, I didn’t know why. It just
that is huge with mystery: How phoebe’s girls club
happened like that. I find solace in that. Writing these
stayed up late into the night stringing photographs,
entries is a journey for sure. There are no clichés in
tying garlands, even in the sadness laughing and
grief this deep, but cliché as it sounds this is a journey
joyfully cutting and collecting; how family and friends
of discovery. Before I can write any of this I have to
arrived in the warm morning and built alters, fire pits,
discover what it means. It is not only discovering the
pews, tables for food and drink, how the boys played
meaning of By the Light in the trees, or Surrender with a
guitar and jammed on the benches. I remember the
Sigh, but discovering how to access a path to a deeper
day of the ceremony. It had been warm for a month.
understanding of those things. Phoebe could have
David Best had told us the orchard is always warm
randomly chosen these titles for her art work, I could
this time of year, but that afternoon a cold and a wind
have randomly had them inked into my arm-- there
had settled on the hill like something brought from a
are always easy logical explanations for why things
far away land-- The same wind that blew out across
might be…. A journey is about seeing things for the
the Marin headlands a week earlier. My grief and
first time. I am learning the difference of the writer
exhaustion not of a world that was meant to be
who writes what he sees and the writer who writes
inhabited by us mortals. I walked through the
what he knows.
driftwood arch, under the olive canopy with the light casting through the branches and witness this church
A funny thing happened, for all the notes I had It is a father’s duty to stand in front of his
scribbled, for all the passages I tried to remember, the
family and closest friends and to speak of what has
poetry I had collected, the stories I jotted down—this
happened. My closest friend Steve who stood beside
little Phoebe story I had forgotten until that moment
me had given me a metal cup to strike. Pause. Strike.
emerged:
Sound ringing out into the orchard-- I see my family,
It was a rainy dark morning traveling along
Phoebe’s family, Phoebe’s closest friends and allies
highway 580 to visit my parents. We left before sunrise
waiting, huddling together with blankets, rugs,
and there were howling winds and torrents of rain. The
sleeping bags, anything to keep our bones from
road suddenly became flooded. I loose control of the van
rattling in a cold that is hard to describe. The sound
and we go spinning down the highway, around and around
descended and with a whisper vanished. I saw the
and around, I see my world flash before my eyes, my babies
light in the trees. Perhaps in that moment I
asleep in the back, until finally careening into the overpass
understood it perfectly, perhaps I put on an awkward
wall and stopping sideways in the middle of the freeway,
pair of my dad’s shiny minister shoes, but the first
our lights shining into a dark void with blind cars and their
words I spoke were: “God is in these trees!” In the
glaring lights coming down upon us in the dark rain.
vacuum of that moment I felt my voice leave my
We’re invisible. Cars swerving. Our crumpled van
mouth and fall at my feet-- Eyes staring at me,
dodging. We manage to limp off the freeway. Disoriented,
waiting, wanting, to cold to move. A voice leaned
scared and confused I access the damage in the gas station
over and whispered if you want to heal in this
fluorescent light. I ask my four year old daughter. What do
moment you have to have your words become real.
we do? Should we go on? Phoebe looks me straight in the
Tell a story. Speak from your heart.
eye. “You should go on Dad. We need to go on.” And in the first morning light we drove south.
I saw people shift in their chairs, I saw a
We build that church in the olive orchard by
moment of relief, the cold lifted a few degrees and
the light of the trees. We build that church under the
words started flowing, I remember talking to
graffiti of the Phoenix Theatre. At the Phoenix I’m on
phoebe’s friends who were sitting on a blanket in the
stage singing Forever Young and there must be 800
front, I remember people smiling at me, nodding
people listening to these words. I see all these
their heads to say-- it’s okay we’re listening, we’re
wonderful, loving, giving, caring, compassionate
hearing you. I remember the light in the trees that
people cryining and singing with me. I see all my
contained this moment. I don’t remember what else I
friends, all phoebe’s friends, my family and their
said but I clearly remember the difference between
families and out of this amazing community I can
those words falling from my mouth and words
only see a small handful that actually go to church,
flowing from my heart.
actually have a faith that allows them to sit in a pew
It was an insincere voice that uttered the three
on a Sunday and have that moment with their God.
letter word and it made the cold even worse. I
The rest of us-- where do we go when we need deep
understood that something was in those trees, but I
faith and solace? Loosing a daughter, a sister, a close
do not have a word to describe it. The way I have
friend, an inspiration-- where do we go? You show
raised my family, the way I raised my daughters and
up, you bring food, your guitar, your poetry, your
sons is to see that word hidden in the beauty in the
hug, your tears, your smile, your love, your eyes,
light of the trees. Phoebe is a gift that now shines
your help, your offering, your ability to build and to
that light so much brighter. As a family our faith is to
see and to create. You honor a spirit and you touch a
walk in the mystery by the light of the trees; look for
mystery. We meditate, We sit, We walk, We play
blue glass in sea shore.
music, We write, We build alters....
I just wrote that paragraph and while getting
The other night we’re sitting around the
ready to decorate the Christmas tree. (More light in
Christmas tree, I don’t remember what we are
the trees). Jordan found this book I made with
talking about, but Max declares I don’t believe in God.
Phoebe when she was seven. It’s about discovering
I get a jolt and feel a moment of yes you do take that
the mystery in the forest on some hikes we used to
back…. But say calmly as not to sound parental and
take. (Thank you for the reminder Phoebe). I think
get the kids defensive. “You do or you don’t, but you
I'll post it at the end of this.
certainly believe in the mystery you feel when you take your long hikes in the hills, play music with your bandmates, you believe in a mystery that you share
We just came back from our Christmas in Elk.
at sunset on the hill with your friends all standing
Drew and Jack, Henry, Jordan and Max and Pam and
quiet looking out towards the ocean…. Maybe you
me. A rainy afternoon spent at glass beach collecting
should say something like I don’t believe in the word
artifacts. The kids now twenty, eighteen and
God for me it’s a bigger mystery that can’t be
seventeen still call me from long distances exclaiming:
explained by one word.” Surprisingly he doesn’t
Dad/Dave, blue glass!!! Still the little kids remembering
argue and just nods his head and says yeah maybe.
the stories we told about it. I can’t tell you how that makes me feel. “We can put it on the alter for Phoebe.” Collecting gifts from tide pools.
When I was young my father was a Methodist
For me the best memory of church was the
minister who built a church and grew a congregation
building of a church. The memory of the day I
from a small handful to two thousand. I was a young
walked in after seeing the stain glass installed marks
boy in this worldâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;being told to say quiet as dad
by first breath taking moment of witnessing how
wrote his sermons, dragged to Sunday boring school,
artifact is so much larger than life. The sound of an
fidgeting for hours in boring church, potluck boring
organ the size of a wall the first memory of music the
dinners, old ladies with blue boring hair and men with
filled your body more than your ears. I easily
shiny boring shoes, but all this dreary church life
remember dad writing sermons around Beatles songs,
dissolved in an instant when I discovered the secret
borrowing my Sgt Peppers album to do a sermon
entrance to the off limits construction zone of the new
around-- Day in the Life. I remember that people
church he was building. I found a labyrinth of secret
laughed in his sermons. I remember standing in line
passages, I watched dirt get excavated and change to
while people filed past us and my mom whispering
steel and wood, steel and wood change to slabs of
the names of people dad couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember. I
concrete, slabs of concrete grow to gargantuan
remember my dad sitting on the pot, bellowing out
proportions. I would sneak off, hide from the Sunday
his sermon from typed pages laid out on the
throng and go through the locked door, past the off
bathroom floor. I remember the church but not the
limits signs and then I played in the mud, I played in
religion.
the dark, I played in the lost areas of the building and created elaborate stories and games, showed my friends the markings left by ancient civilizations and the patterns laid down by futuristic beings in the forbidden passages of the Garden Grove catacombs
Suddenly I see this all about building churches
The Yurt on the hill and the hut on the plateau,
for our family and community. Not big ornate
Spirit Rock, All our driftwood houses, Rock labyrinths
structures with a steeple and open the doors and see
on hill tops, hand made dams and stacked rocks in
all the people, but of things of sticks and stones and
rivers, amazing camp sites at 10,000 feet, playing
blue glass and abalone shells and flowers and
music in front of a fire, Jack building at burning man,
garlands, and trees and mountain tops and cliffs
drew making a gallery for a community or artists,
overlooking the sea and beaches and fires and secrete
Pam creating books of family heritage…. This list is
alters in nooks and crannies.
endless. Even 4 friends going to Spider Murphy’s and
So for me it’s the building part not the church part: My dad’s concrete church and also the adobe chapel in Mexico still a huge memory as a kid hiding
getting a tattoo of Phoebe’s artwork is building a church. If I mention to the kids right now asleep in
in the goat caves and stacking adobe blocks and
their beds-- lets go to the beach and build a house out
lighting a candle at night. Getting married in the
of driftwood and make a fire they will drop
merry go round with Drew and then on the beach
everything to go. And when we do we always see
with Pam with me and the boys collecting driftwood
amazing things along the way. There are always
in the morning and making a circle and the Jordan
stories to tell, photos to take, memories to hold.
and Phoebe coming down later with flowers to make a path and hang them from a gate we made
There is always-- the light in the trees.