Have You Heard?

Is it so strange to feel connected to a tree? Scraggly, hanging bark, mere sticks in the ground..."just part of the yard"...could it be more?

Farmer payers answered with weighty blessings...too much of a good thing? "No, never...but oh, we will miss that tree."

Circled rings, shaded rest, horses, huts and high places. Even before coming alive with giggling grand kids, it was ours.

We stood on branches too thin to grin at the whole world from it's very top, rode it's horse branches and shelled pea mountains in it's shade. We mowed under it's branches as it scratched at bare arms, dozed, laughed and could hardly wait to share it with our kids...adding one more circled ring.

Good times, good memories, and if that was all it would be enough...but I've always felt more...heard more...maybe I'm just feeling sentimental, or waxing poetic, but how do you explain a language to one who has never heard? And if you have, then my words are inadequate.

I have heard whispered peace as I walked under pine boughs...a homesick college girl. I have heard branches beseeching to be climbed every time I ran by, until I finally succumbed, to the surprise of my fiance. I have quietly conversed with willowy treetops as I nursed my babies. I heard live oaks gently awakening my hibernating soul.

Spiritual connection with nature is not a new thought, as Eliza R. Snow wrote of the sacrifice of the Savior, she included the human reactions of the elements.

"The sun in shame withdrew it light!

Earth trembled, and all nature sighed

In dread response, "A God has died!"

~Eliza R. Snow, Behold the Great Redeemer Die

I remember a family grieving for a mountain on fire; more than just fear of lost crops, but the knowledge that a dear friend would never be the same again.

I hear trees, they speak to me, but I believe all nature can encourage, comfort and lift our eyes heavenward; visual symbols of reaching branches and elevated mountain peaks or simple words of praise only our hearts can understand, it is all a simple conversation of gratitude, dependence and love...just waiting to be had.

". . . as long as there are movement and harmony, there are words."~Shannon Hale