Like a Lover
Day 90 of my tree puja.
This one is gentle and sweet.
There is delightful soft rain falling but it’s not cold…
I apologised briefly and left
Day 89 of my tree puja.
It would help if you understood the three gunas - tamas, rajas and sattwa. In brief: inertia/darkness, activity/ego and flow/light. They are the attributes of everything, and we are subject to them.
Yesterday I went in my socks and clogs. It is growing cold, I had them on and forgot to remove them for puja…
Dissolution
Day 88 of my tree puja.
In a philosophical frame of mind these days, considering my own, and the tree’s, and even the power pole’s, absence.
One day, we cannot know when, the tree will be no more, I will be no more, the house, the buzzing power pole, all the things that seem so permanent, will die and crumble, somehow…
Not entirely a wild thing
Day 86 of my tree puja.
My tree is not a wild tree. Just as I am not a wild human. We have this domesticity in common, as we reach out to each other across the species boundary.
The morning is a time of upward flowing energy. I felt it instantly, as I stood under the tree preparing the deepak (oil lamp)…
Don’t think
Day 85 of my tree puja.
Silence is the thing. The world has become so noisy.
Don’t say anything more and don’t think…
I went also at dusk today
Day 84 of my tree puja.
For the first time, I practice twice in a day, at dawn and dusk. The experience is quite different.
I felt how her energy, and all the movement of nature was downward. The energy is moving down into the earth…
The experience of wind unites all beings
Day 84 of my tree puja.
Laughing with the Pink Ladies, in the wind, in the summer dawn.
It has been very hot. The dawn wind on my skin was a joy, its freedom of movement and the way the experience of wind unites all beings and objects that experience it together…
Be still, like a tree
Day 83 of my tree puja.
Stillness is the secret.
I squatted beneath the tree, closed my eyes and was still, face held by hands. The tree is so still…
The matrix of natural energy
Day 82 of my tree puja.
Feedback from the tree continues as our relationship unfolds.
A group of birds were singing madly and urgently together somewhere. In the gum blossom, full of nectar and rain, a wattle bird flapped and supped…
A world without trees is unthinkable
Day 81 of my tree puja.
Trees are more important than humans.
A world without humans would be a peaceful and still beautiful place…
The purpose of ritual
Day 80 of my tree puja.
Realisations about ritual, about worship, about surrendering to the experience, continue. This is a state of clarity.
The regularity of ritual brings reassurance if nothing else…
I felt our secrecy, our privacy
Day 79 of my tree puja.
The puja creates a sacred space.
I was a bit late. The day was moving into rajas, action…
I am the same as the bird
Day 78 of my tree puja.
The idea of oneness, unity, becomes a living experience.
The feeling from the tree was this: I am the same as the bird and the bird’s song, as the soil, and I am even the same as the sky…
The tree is peace
Day 77 of my tree puja.
Peace, shanti, is the goal.
The tree is peace. The tree is Mother Earth, one and the same…
The elements are in balance
Day 76 of my tree puja.
Balance, the elusive goal, is experienced.
The elements are in balance – earth, water, fire, air, and space…
Feeling is a prayer
Day 75 of my tree puja.
Offering a flower to a plant is an interesting concept.
I am swelling with emotion just like a ripe bud in spring! Some say that feeling is a prayer. I offer my feeling, there is too much for me…
The tree is like an antenna
Day 74 of my tree puja.
Through the antenna, I align with Mother Earth.
I realised today that the tree is Mother Earth…
Between the sun and the earth
Day 73 of my tree puja.
Trees are our sun umbrellas, protection from the fire in the sky.
I was a bit late. The sun is already bright and hot. Even at this early hour, it shines with great force…
A sustaining force
Day 72 of my tree puja.
The principle of an energy field and caring for it becomes clear. This is a traditional idea that modernity is alienated from.
Over time the ritual creates, or perhaps connects with and opens a field of energy. This must be maintained...
Trees and birds are one
Day 71 of my tree puja.
Trees are not islands. They are worlds. Birds inhabit that world.
If not for the tree ritual I wouldn’t go out each morning to stand in nature and hear the birds.