Write to Remain: Rooted Together

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Rooted Together

What you are about to read is a clip that I've kept in my journal ever since my mother passed away, seven years ago. When I was packing for the "Write of Passage" journey I'd be taking with Cote, I tucked this piece of paper into my bag to keep with me. I knew the Redwoods were going to be one of the most powerful experiences I would share with my daughter. Since trees have a way of speaking directly to my soul, the words written below have brought me much comfort and peace over the years. I know my own mother lives on in everything I do; her spirit has been rooted within me. Thank you, Mom, for the lessons, the love, the memories. May my own daughters' lives be enriched by your legacy.

Epilogue from Motherless Daughters:

A Legacy of Loss

by Hope Edelman

"Nature often offers metaphors more elegant than any we can manufacture. Redwoods have evolved to turn disaster into opportunity. In these coastal forests, death produces life.

This is what I mean: In the redwood ecosystem, all seeds are contained in pods called burls, tough brown clumps that grow where the mother tree's trunk and root system meet. When the mother tree is logged, blown over, or destroyed by fire--when, in other words, she dies--the trauma stimulates the burls' growth hormones. The seeds release, and trees sprout around her, creating the circle of daughters. The daughter trees grow by absorbing the sunlight their mother cedes to them when she dies. And they get the moisture and nutrients they need from their mother's root system, which remains intact underground even after her leaves die. Although the daughters exist independently of their mother above ground, they continue to draw sustenance from her underneath.

I am fooling only myself when I say my mother exists now only in the photograph on my bulletin board or in the outline of my hand or in the armful of memories I still hold tight. She lives on beneath everything I do. Her presence influences who I am. Our lives are shaped as much by those who leave us as they are by those who stay. Loss is our legacy. Insight is our gift. Memory is our guide."

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Powerful Words

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable. ~Kahlil Gibran

Words to Share:

And I Want to Live

And laugh, and love, and think, and hope, and question, and travel, and find, and seek, and pray, and cry, and believe, and enjoy life.
I want to be Brave and Go.
I want to find Love; in people and animals and nature and trees and myself.
I want to be Happy, but not by anyone else's standards but my own.
I want to find Me, but get terribly and utterly Lost along the Way.
And chase what makes me tick, what inspires me, what challenges me, and go forth in the Belief that I can
Leave my fears, broaden my trust and strength within.
I want to Begin. ~ Hannah Witt, July, 2012

One drop can make all the difference--be it of rain or tear or sweat.
One drop can start a flood to raging, or mend a hurting heart, or baptize a soul to new life.

One drop can be what fills the river and pushes it to the waiting sea.

One drop can wash away the pain and let you know you're not alone.

One drop can cause the ripple inside your heart, that will expand and spread, till it finds the courage hidden deep within.

One drop...can make all the difference.

~Jolene, 7/31/12

"It's good to stop the noise you are making as you move through the world--simply by stopping. When I do, that is when I hear the dry leaves fluttering in the trees overhead, the short jack-hammering of the woodpecker hunting for his dinner, and the beating of my own searching heart. When I stop, my eyes are drawn to the squirrels balance-beaming on branches and the sunlight that dances upon the leaves. It is when I stop, that I become part of nature and not just a traveler passing through."
~Jolene, 2012

"What is a friend? A friend is a reminder that you are never alone. A good friend will hold your hand when you're lost, or scared, or overwhelmed by the weight of the world. They will brush a tear away when you're sad, or drop one of their own, wishing they could ease your sorrow. A good friend will laugh with you, forgive you, and love you no matter what. They will help pull the stubborn weeds from your life, and then stand beside you, as together you watch the good stuff grow." ~Jolene, July 16, 2011, 3:30 a.m.

"Why do I write?......I write because I have kept my mouth shut all my life and the secret ego truth is I want to live eternally and I want my people to live forever......I write because there are stories that people have forgotten to tell, because I am a woman trying to stand up in my life. I write because to form a word with your lips and tongue or think a thing and then dare to write it down so that you can never take it back is the most powerful thing I know. I am trying to come alive, to find the distances in my own recesses and bring them forward and give them color and form." ~Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones

"I have learned a lot from trees: sometimes about the weather, sometimes about animals, sometimes about the Great Spirit."

~Walking Buffalo

"The trail has taught me much. I know now the varied voices of the coyote--the wizard of the mesa. I know the solemn call of herons and the mocking cry of the loon. I remember a hundred lovely lakes and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees....It has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day."
~Writer Hamlin Garland

"If you're not living on the edge,

you're taking up too much space."

~Jenny, CA

Words From the Road:

"We Belong to the light, We Belong to the thunder,

We Belong to the sound of the words we've both fallen under,

Whatever we deny or embrace, for worse or for better,

We Belong, We Belong

We Belong together." ~ lyrics from "We Belong" by Pat Benatar, and sung by Cote and Mom, side by side, while driving through South Dakota.

"Don't think about it. Just try it. You'll be surprised how good it is. I promise." ~Jenny to her tree-climbing companions during breakfast, August 9, 2009. She reluctantly handed out small pieces of her chocolate-covered bacon, just to prove how good it really was and that she wasn't as crazy as we all thought.

"Be strong. Live strong." ~Words of strength given to Cote from Mom, in the form of a t-shirt and small book, the morning of our climb, August 8, 2009.

"No matter what--you can always come to me. I will always be here for you. Not in judgement, but only with love, support, and safety." ~Mom to Cote, August 6, 2009. Out on Highway 140, somewhere between Paradise Valley, Nevada and Adel, Oregon.

"This is amazing." ~Cote, August 4, 2009, standing on an edge, overlooking the Rocky Mountain horizon.

"I wouldn't fast-forward any of it. I want to see it all."

~Cote, August 3, 2009. Spoken somewhere around the

400-mile marker in Nebraska, after miles, and miles, and miles of nothing but cornfields.......

"It's like watching two people pass a note back and forth in front of you, and you're not invited to join in or know what's being said." ~ Jolene, August 2, 2009. Taken from Texting Etiquette conversation with Cote on I-80-West, just past the Mississippi River.