Oak and Cedar Co-create Space for Community

 

A big, beautiful Red Oak tree graces the park beside my home.  Its strong limbs stretch out sideways since there are no other trees close by.  One of its lower limbs used to reach across the roadway until it was sawed off by a township worker.  No doubt some safety or liability concern was responsible for that decision.  To me, this looked like an amputation and I grieved.  The Oak healed the scar and carried on growing.  I think of this as a mature tree but in terms of an Oak’s long lifespan it is perhaps a young adult producing hundreds of brown acorns every summer.  It is a friend to the squirrels, birds, insects and other life forms as well as to me.

They say that an Oak’s roots are the same size as the branches that form the canopy.  The roots need to be very strong to anchor this tree whose wood is dense and heavy.   I stand at the edge of the park and try to imagine that in my mind’s eye.  I try to get a sense of what is beneath my feet and where the roots go.  Perhaps they cross under the road that the branch once reached over.  It is all there, the visible and the hidden if I look.

Oak was sacred to my ancient ancestors the Celts.  It was Britain’s World Tree that connected the Lowerworld, home of the ancestors with the Upperworld that holds embryonic possibilities.  It connected the past, present and future for the humans who lived in between these worlds.  The Ogham letter for Oak or Duir was the letter D.  Duir was the precursor of the English word door and it lent its name to the name Druid as they met in sacred Oak groves.  Druid means “one with the wisdom of the Oak” (Danu Forest).  A Druidic legend says that the tree is the “beating heart of the planet” and that the time will come when people will replant the sacred Oak groves beginning in County Clare, Ireland (Diana Beresford-Krueger).

Oak represents inner strength, endurance, courage and self-determination (Glennie Kindred) as well as a doorway to self knowledge (Sharlyn Hidalgo).

Oak was the favoured wood for shipbuilding because it is strong and long lasting. In fact, it was so popular that almost all of the British Oak trees were cut down until finally some of them became protected by law in the UK.  It was Oak trees, made into ships, that allowed the British to travel all over the world, colonizing as they went.

Just outside of the dripline of Red Oak in the park is the frame for a community garden made of Eastern White Cedar which is sacred to the Anishinaabeg.  The garden is circular with a gate on the Eastern side which is the direction from  which the Anishinaabeg enter circles.  Our community had a Planting Celebration this past Saturday, the traditional weekend for planting in this part of the world.  We planted the Four Sacred Medicines of the Anishinaabeg; tobacco, cedar, sage and sweetgrass as well as the Three Sisters (corn, bean and squash) from Haudenosaunee and Wendat traditions.  Indigenous Drumming and Knowledge Sharing opened the space.  Then children and adults joined together to plant the vegetables, flowers and seeds that had been donated.  Local musicians provided music that connected everyone while the planting and watering took place and then food was shared.

Our goal is to bring people together, to grow community as we grow plants.  These elder brothers and sisters, the plants can teach us how to grow community.  We are bringing together the two world views of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people here in Ontario, Canada.  We are looking for common ground, Mother Earth, to be exact.

The tall Oak and the young Cedar remind us of our own roots and responsibilities to protect life together.  Their co-created presence will teach us how to co-create the future that we wish for.  And perhaps Oak will still remember that it is a doorway for those of British heritage when we come knocking.

 

The Gift of Being

 

In his tiny square room, we sit together quietly,

My dad and I.

He, slumped to the left in his reclining wheelchair

I, perched uncomfortably on the side of his bed.

The nursing home took away the chair for visitors

During the first year of the pandemic.

It never came back.

 

Almost ninety-five, he needs care

And help, to eat and dress and move.

His drinking fluids are thickened now

And spooned into his mouth.

The nurse gives me some thick fruit punch

In a plastic cup with a spoon

To “see if you can get some into him”.

He opens his mouth and I carefully spoon some in.

I am reminded of feeding my children

As babies.

It feels strangely familiar this resurrected skill.

This, I know how to do.

 

It is May and so his nose is running like a tap.

I wipe it and tell him to blow and he does.

I wait, spoon topped up, for him

To open his mouth once again.

The angle is wrong and red,

Thickened juice slides onto his shirt.

I wipe it up with large paper wipes

And wait again for another chance

To keep him hydrated.

 

I remember being told by my mother, that as a baby

I ate happily when he fed me.

But when my anxious first-time mother tried,

I vomited in a way she described as projectile.

My dad had a baby sister as a boy,

So perhaps he too resurrected the skill

While my mother was out of her depth.

I still can’t eat when I am anxious.

 

My dad fed me and now I feed him.

Reciprocity after more than six decades.

He played the piano to put me to sleep

And now I play him music on my iPod

To wake up his brain and bring some

Pleasure, perhaps some remembrance.

He played me the record, Peter and the Wolf

When I was a child and today

I played it for him on my iPod,

In this tiny room at the end of the hall.

 

Not everyone gets to experience

This kind of reciprocity,

This kind of gentle acceptance

Of life’s circle.

There is gift here, I sense it.

There is not much to do anymore

For this man who did so much.

I sit with him calmly, just being

Now that the doing is done,

In a timeless in-between space

With someone I have known

My entire life.

There is gift here, I feel the sacredness

Of just being.