Beauty for the Creatures

This is what we did on Saturday (in the rain). It was really lovely. There were six of us: Jim, Rose, Iris, Elisabeth (the mom), and David (the dad). We didn’t take the dogs! Because of the rain (and the mosquitoes) we sat on our porch, with images and lists of those creatures we wanted to remember, both endangered and extinct. We wondered aloud and had a conversation about why we feel so much more sadness for those today than those of long ago—dinosaurs, for example, and wooly mammoths. That led us into a conversation about pterodactyls and chickens. Outside, we sauntered through the woods on a trail that Jim and I had cleared years ago. (We have three such.) We moved off the trail, identified fungi and plants. Then we reached the tree called Once. As we put dog kibble in the bark, we named animals—we thought of many more, and asked the tree to hold these beautiful creatures in love. Rose, in the red jacket, is beginning the weave of the golden thread from the live tree to the fallen one right next to it, joining the living to the dead. On that same trail is what I’ve named the Grandmother tree, the Great Grandfather tree, and the Great Grandmother tree. We added kibble to those trees as well, asking them to hold the children of the world. Finally, there is a tree called Mousetrap, and we placed kibble there. Mousetrap is the memorial tree for the various mice and moles that one of our rescue dogs (part terrier) can’t resist. We apologized for Althea. Kind of soggy by then, we came back to the house, ate and drank. It was really a lovely afternoon.