OCTOBER 29
Be still, my heart, these great trees are prayers.
—RABINDRANATH TAGOREWhen we are grieving, we’re apt to feel in some ways alone,
cut off from other people and other living things.
It is salutary to go outside and stand by a tree. To stand
in the presence of a great tree is to feel a kind of solidarity
with nature, a continuity between oneself and the whole
created world.
Now move closer, and put the palms of your hands
against the bark of the tree. Feel the bark with your fingers.
Think of the tree’s age—how long it has been here, through
summer and winter; how it draws its energy up from the
earth and down from sunshine and rain.
Then stand closer yet, lean against the tree, and put your
arms around it (hoping the neighbors aren’t looking, but
who cares?). Feel your own continuity with the tree—and,
by extension, your loved one’s continuity with all created
life, including this tree you now embrace in honor and in
memory of the one you have lost.
You may be laughing, or crying, or feeling foolish—or
some of each. But don’t you feel better?
The created world is one and embraces us all, the living and the
dead.