The Education of Little Tree

The education of Little Tree is a book by Forest Carter. The story is about an Indian boy who grew up with his Grandma and Grandpa. It is the first book I read this year. I loved it! I was already taken the first time I read it. It seems like the book is a gentle Cherokee hostess touring you around their way of life. Letting you see things. Halfway through the book I felt like I am already one of them. That's how enchanting the book was. The forest, the trees... One beautiful sentence after another like:

One little patch of fog would come around the end of a mountain like a silver boat and bump into another one and they would melt together and take off up a hollow.

There is not anything like dawn from the top of the high mountains. 

My head swirled after reading that sentence and I felt the urge to want to go to the mountains and experience the dawn at the top of it. That's how badly affected I am with the book. It made my head swim.

Nuggets of wisdom sprinkled the book which made we wish I could live like them.

“Grandma said when you come on something that is good, first thing to do is share it with whoever you can find; that way, the good spreads out to where no telling it will go.” 

"Grandma's name was Bonnie Bee. I knew that when I heard him late at night say, "I kin ye, Bonnie Bee", he was saying "I love ye," for the feeling was in the words. And when they would be talking and Granma would say, "Do you kin me, Wales?" and he would answer, "I kin ye." it meant "I understand ye." To them love and understanding was the same thing. Grandma said you couldn't love something you didn't understand; nor could you love people, nor God, if you didn't understand the people and God." 

The book was so mystical - characters could sense the trees, stars, changing of seasons and spirits. It was so mystical I believed it.

That's why I was shocked to find (google) that there were many complaints against the book claiming that it was fraud and that the author was really not Little Tree, and to top it all he was a racist. I did not care. I'm glad he wrote it. And im pretty sure he had somehow understood people and learned to love regardless of race for him to write this. I felt the spirit of the book (and the sincerity of the man behind it) and I am glad he wrote it.

I am an emotional reader. When I read this near the end,

Little Tree, I must go. Like you feel the trees, feel for us when you are listening. we will wait for you. Next time will be better. All is well. Granma."   

I could not hold it in. I cried like Pine Billy would. I cried with a glad heart for it was such a good story. I cried knowing that all is good. Life is good. And that it is possible. You can listen and talk to trees. I love trees. I love this book. I think it is true. All is told in honesty. No assumptions, no pretensions, just what is.

This is the kind of book I want to read again from time to time for the rest of my life.

How We Say Sorry At Home

 In our family we never say sorry when we truly are sorry.

I don't know why but it has always been that way ever since I could remember. I guess it kind of embarrass us to say sorry (I'm not sure if this is what my siblings and my parents feel but it's certainly what i feel)

The usual kind of saying sorry for me is to ask favor, because talking is hard to do when you know you are wrong or when you're hurting. I call it pride. I think I am a proud person, and I've been trying to keep my pride at bay so it won’t get in the way. It gets in the way sometimes. And when it does, I am indifferent. I won't talk nor would I look at you. It takes a lot of control and humility not to harbor and nurture hate especially when I know I am in the right.

This knowing of being in the right does not help in building relationships because it builds pride. I have seen relatives not being okay for years - each insisting they are in the right and too proud to ask forgiveness.

If I am not careful I may end up like them. A person has to be awake enough to notice that he is angry because anger nurtured, I noticed, turns into hate, and hate carried too long  becomes indifference. And I don't ever want to carry hate nor indifference for years ever again. O, the things you will miss not enjoying each other’s company!

When I'm sorry and too stubborn to admit it, I ask for favor, -HAHA! simple favors like 'Could you get me the water please' or 'Can I borrow your cellphone?' it means I have forgiven you, or that I want us to be okay now, and can we move on already.

My family gets it. So when they still won’t talk after I made the first move it means they are not yet ready to forgive but it is okay because they know that I’m over it already. 

Another thing when I am sorry and when I am wrong (I am wrong usually means disobedience and talking back at my parents -- even when I am in the right I feel wrong at fighting back.

I feel guilty when I talk back with rage, I feel guilty that I am not able to control my anger, and I feel guilty because it is a sign of disrespect.)

The biggest challenge for me at home is to honor my parents because I feel old enough to talk back. I don't like being told what to do. I especially don't like being nagged at for any reason at all. I am old enough for it! Haven't I outgrown my bad habits already? (Disappointed) I feel like I don't deserve to be treated that way. And that feeling of entitlement gets me in trouble.

Sometimes I surprise myself erupting like a raging volcano. Eruption happens and I am truly sorry afterward. And when I am truly sorry and guilty I do favor. I clean the house or do things that I know would please my parents. Or I would just simply obey. And my parents, they get it. I have never heard any of my family member say sorry. They also have their own way of saying it. And I get it.  

This is how we do things at home.

This is how we heal over and over again. 

It Came Upon Me With No Name

Posting some beautiful poems and essay I found while surfing the net. Oh, the good things you can find!

“Everything around you—maybe it’s a palm tree,
dripping water, cars honking, people racing past
you— everything feels ecstatic when you free
yourself into the moment. You recognize your
interconnectedness, and all these things in a moment
can become mystical doorways for the Soul.”

-- Ram Dass, Still Here

***

It came upon me with no name and it was beautiful and I couldn’t describe it but I tried. It 

came upon me both hard and soft, hard like a punch in your belly, when you’re not expecting 

it, so it really lays you low, and soft like a breath in your ear, whispering something you really 

like in a secret language that you do not know. Now how, you ask, could it be both hard and

soft? Good question. And the answer is I don’t know, for it came upon me without a name, 

without expectation. No explain of what it was, how long it would stay, or where, after it went, 

it would go.

-- It came upon me with no name, The Cenacle, Number 84


***

Don't write love poems; avoid those forms that are too facile and ordinary: they are the hardest to work with, and it takes great, fully ripened power to create something individual where good, even glorious, traditions exist in abundance. So rescue yourself from these general themes and write about what your everyday life offers you; describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your
dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place.

-- Letters to a Young Poet

A Letter to Myself

Dear Me, I love you. You know that. This is drama but this is also true. And sometimes I need to write to you to get to you. So let me tell you.

Do not worry if you do not know so much of this world.

Don't worry that you haven't figured out life yet. Learn to live with your questions.

It isn’t easy, but try to be at ease with the great unknown.

Don't be certain. Be sincere. Live with your heart. Speak your truth. 

Don't worry if your spirituality leads you on to so many paths. You can forget everything but never Jesus on the shore - your happy place. That is yours alone; your happy place is yours alone.

Try not to sleep too much. I know you; sometimes living is too much reality for you so you try to escape in your sleep. I've heard it is not poetic. So don't sleep during the day, but you can take a nap.

Someone said that the big thing in life is to love reality, and not imagine what could have been, or what should be, but to love reality and discover that God is present. I love that thought a lot.

I like you better when you are yourself and I like you most when you just accept you. Stop the old tape in your head; you're so shy, you're so slow, you're a fake, you are weak you don't deserve to be forgiven - don't beat yourself again and again. Don't believe that shit either (excuse the word).

They say that we have so many things in life that's against us already, don't make the mistake of being against yourself; forgive, forgive yourself, always forgive, and learn from your mistakes.

Learn gradually.

I know you. You want to learn everything at once. That's frustrating.

You have your whole lifetime to learn so don't hurry learning. It is fun that way.

Love you and your inner child in you. Ah, your inner child. Embrace her for she is in want. Remember that day in 4th grade when she collapsed? Embrace her and her thoughts that day.

Love her. Love her for always. And you will begin to see her smile and play within you.

Swell; swell with too much love you can't help but share.

That Joy on Your Face My Dear Sister

 Tinago Falls...

We were on a bamboo raft along with many of our SFC family 

and some men were pulling a roof that leads straight to the waterfall. 

I remembered being so excited. 

We took time to post for pictures for our brother (our faithful photographer)

who was on the other side of the water. 

 When we reached the gushing fall 

I can hear shouting.

 Loud shouting washed out by loud falling waters. 

Everyone on the raft was ecstatic. 

I can only see teeth and yellow and orange life vests. 

That's how strong the water was.

 I looked for you and I panic for a moment for I did not see you.

I searched for you and found you at the edge of the raft.

You were at the center of the water fall- 

the heart of it all - letting it wash all of you.

you were shouting and jumping while holding the rope,

the poor thing supporting you. 

I thought it might break. 

You were so brave enjoying it all. 

You've been through a lot yet here you are, whole.

For a moment I felt a tinge of jealousy wishing I could be as happy as you.

 But you held my hand and jump as if saying, don’t think!  Feel! 

I jumped with you and we were shouting so hard it hurts. 

The water was so cold and incredibly tiny droplets of water were on our faces,

  our shoulders, our hands and even our finger nails!

 I wish we had water proof camera to capture us.

The Mystery of God is too Deep to Comprehend

This morning has been mysterious in a way that the weather is a little bleak yet the sun is out casting soft light on leaves of trees and faces of people I love.

While I was in bed I suddenly saw in my head, a park getting wider and wider as I was lifted higher and higher from the ground till I was leaving the earth.

I saw other planets and stars and the earth getting smaller and smaller.

I was so far from the earth, a universe far from it, that it looked like a dot in the map of the cosmos.

I suddenly felt an enormous question welling up within me.

We are only a dot in the map of the entire universe!

How dare we confine God the Creator in our own minds?

Truly he is beyond imagination. And there are things we don't know, like maybe other beings in a parallel or another universe, or something we have not yet imagined because truly the possibilities are endless.

The depth and mystery of it all: this universe, our minds, our purpose, our existence need be spoken in an entirely new language to be understood.

How to Be Compassionate

You were talking angry I was watching you closely
Your lips shivered with angst and your eyes were intense
as if seeing an approaching enemy.

I could tell by your hand gestures that you are ready to wrestle
And if somebody come nearer those hands could break a neck.

You were so angry your body is moving with it.
But I held my own and looked at you.
I heard your story and tried never to judge
It was about a thief and a face on a stone and a fortune teller.
It was ridiculous.
I tried again not to judge.

I never want to add to your anger
nor laugh at you.
So I sat quiet and listen.
I don't know what to say.
I was careful not to say anything that might fuel your anger all the more.
I never said a word.

That was hard for me to do but I hope it emptied your heart out.