Bird tree

This trip to the Reserve was the fourth visit to Kairos. I was going to head straight for the tree but decided to go by the circuitous route and on the way I noticed this.

The bird flying out of this dead sycamore absolutely stunned me! Before, I had held onto the tree and felt a strange shifting as though the tree and I were swaying in the wind. All in all, it was a strange experience.

Then I went and sat with the oak. I noticed a half circle of holly trees around the Mystical Tree and how the tree shaded a wide circle in which nothing grew. I figure Kairos is about 200 and so older than all the surrounding trees. Was he in a wood? A hedge? I think the former as he grew largely upwards and then maybe other trees were cut and the side branches sprouted - but the canopy then shaded them out.

I wasn't really asking any questions. Just being. But afterwards, partly because I had done the presentation on talking with trees the day before (you can see it here, if you really want to, click on my name then my picture), I was thinking about conversations and I recalled this quotation from a wonderful novel that I very much recommend.

"Communication is communion. When we communicate with others, we take something from them into ourselves, and give them something of ours. Perhaps it is this thought that makes us so nervous about the idea of encountering cultures outside the human. The thought that what it means to be human will shift—and we will lose our footing. Or that we will finally have to take responsibility for our actions in this world." —Dr. Ha Nguyen, How Oceans Think - The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler 

Further, I had a talk with Gay about what the trees "say" to me and she sent me a link to Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Dao De Jing - read aloud, including the introduction. The similarities are profound... transcendence in immanence, the indistictness, the being..

I have tried to read the text - not Mitchell's translation, though - and always stopped after a short time. This version is incredibly clear.