Today I spoke to them again, in prayerful silence and mystery, and let them know I am still wounded, still slow to heal, but that only comes from the depth of love and connection I bear for my last home. You can’t just run headlong into a new relationship, after the old one dies, can you? Not if the old one had meaning and power. Honestly, I’d have endured all the crap of that place just to embrace the silver maple and smell the balsam poplar in spring, after a rain…watch the glint of sun on willows lining a sacred stream, and visit my various mossy thrones and sitspots forever.

I wander out to the firepit and tell them – I hope you will welcome me when my shattered heart starts to say it’s time.
And then a squirrel throws something at me and Danny has a flip-out and I’m back in regular time, the hemlocks are sagely watching, I know they know much more than I.
I trust their wisdom.

Yeah, love like that can endure a lot of crap, and it isn’t easily replaced, not if you have any kind of a soul.

But I think the hemlocks know that.
I’m amazed to learn how old they are,these trees, even smaller ones! and to feel the special magic of a hemlock forest, and feel too, their great energy when I step into the deep shade they create(because hemlocks need that shade to keep growing).

Beech, red oak, hemlock, and grouse, porcupine, great horned owl…amanita.

I bring you my heart, my sad and wounded heart, and you stand silent under the snow, spirits waiting for the quickening of spring, and the turn of the Wheel yet again.