Sycamore Wind Songs
To see is to view and recognize.
To observe is to begin to understand.
To understand is to begin to be understood.
The wind blows on a moonless desert night. It makes an eerie noise as it rattles the leaves and then dives down along the trunk of an old Sycamore, carving more wounds in the already mottled epidermis making deeper scars on this stately elder.
The Sycamore is not warm and friendly. She’s cloaked in shades of Gray and Green like druids of old. Her arms are spread out and bent as if to help her balance, her roots are deep and drink from the cold ground water below that makes its way to the creek where she now stands.
She’s stood her ground for as many as 600 years and knows much. She was here before Columbus set sail and before the Vikings ate the wild blueberries of Maine.
Her seed is now carried far and wide by the winds and birds of which she shades and protects. She owes no man, she survived his ruthless greed and exploitation. She is now ready to be venerated.
Sometimes her low moan is hidden by the wind, sometimes it harmonizes with it like a baroque hymn. Sometimes she’s silent, and brooding. She turns her leaves against the weather and shuts us out and braces for what is to come. Other times she is fully open and welcoming as a parent but, with reserve.
The Sycamore could teach us much if we listen. You cannot survive alone. Every drop of water, every breath of air, every creature that calls her home helps her to survive. Even her skin has evolved to help her. We have the power to do that. In a chameleon like way.
You can adapt to the weather around you and turn your back to the storm. You can open your arms and accept all that you are or deny all you do not understand. Your seed does not spread by itself nor does the richness of your story. You are its voice.
You can harmonize with the wind or moan softly and suffer alone. You are rooted in the soil that is your past and drink from the ever flowing ground waters that are your experiences. And, in the end...memories.
To see is to view and recognize, to observe is to begin to understand. And to understand brings us closer together.
