February now brings this white wall of winter. Our sphere of vision contracts to a pale ball. Every attack of the bright blank can push that wall tight around you. Breath comes short and shallow. There is no break of earth above the blanket of snowy , deep , cold silence. Sunlight just tells you where every small ice crystal shines its narrow blade. All the small protected places have been enclosed in the frozen phase of earths long story. It kills the things that cannot move or that can't remain strongly still and sleeping .
I try to sleep like my trees. They stand quiet and bend gently to winds. What possible dreams move in oak or maple ? The silently threatened ash trees have lived here since the ice gave way to green forests. Before human axes. Their dreams would be large , bright, wordless. Deepest roots below the freeze, tips moving in every shade of light.
Our dreams expand with the long nights . Living amongst these trees their dreams will creep into yours . Showing stars and clouds and rain , soil drinking water to fill the quiet slow heart. Don't bring these dreams to your counselor . They aren't yours. Let them give you what they offer. But keep it in the dark soil . At least for now . Just see these things . For instance...
At the foot of these dreaming trees are the saplings that will be covered under summer canopy . In the white snowy winds they move. In a harmony held by the thickness and diminishing of thickness as they reach and wave and wait. A curve of small fingerling strands that grow and blend to show the outline of a human form. A woody armature of arms and shoulders , head and legs and twiggy chest. Lungs and the outlined route of bones and blood. It awaits flesh to fill the basketry there.
Looking down you find a bowl of clay . Warm substance in your hands to lay on the armature sculpture to give it flesh . It moves gently under your hands and the breeze. Smooth on the clay to make the waking human form . Face and skin of shoulders , arms , breasts and belly . You apply the stiffening clay to the blossoming form in front of you . The twigs now twining warmly feel of flesh . Beneath your hands the armature still moves, becomes its own living force that moves the clay you've laid there. It moves beneath your hands its own way now. Its own path and plan . It never was yours . She stands now in front of you . Her feet buried in earth and hair waving in the winter wind.
These are the kinds of dreams that living with trees will give you. They dream you too. When you wake in the morning you see them just where you left them . All the small twigs and saplings show themselves as daylight creatures , static and benign .
- But in the hushed invisible betweens , what you don't need to see out loud , the heart of the woman who lived under your dream lit hands , still subtly beats as the light grows and moves. From east to tree shaded west .
