Dearest reader, I am sharing some of my responses to the 42 days of writing calls we are all engaging with during the Being A Writer | Becoming Who You Want to Become writing circle.

Instructions: The writer is situated in a specific context. Write towards the Volta, the change. 

We are in an urban forest, among long grasses and bushes, small trees. We stand in the center of a copse of aspen, branches covered in hoarfrost from a wet and cold evening. The sun shines nearly overhead in this mid-morning. 

My cellphone is in the breast pocket of my long coat. It plays a podcast with the episode title, Life Without Unnecessary Suffering. 

I wonder if I can be here, in this moment, among these trees while also listening to the recording of someone else speaking from Paris, one evening weeks ago? 

I wrap each arm around an aspen trunk, clasp my hands in front of me, at about level with my heart and I squeeze. I hug the trees as if they were twins. As if they are related. I am the middle space bringing them together. I hug them as if they are living beings who can feel my presence, not just as pressure on their trunks, but as affection. Appreciation. 

Their roots intertwine far below my feet in swirls and arches, in patterns of branching and connecting. I breathe in the oxygen they make. I breathe out the carbon dioxide I make. We take our breaths from each other, we give our breaths to each other. How deep is our love, I wonder? 

I float my gloved hands, one on each tree trunk, palm flat, about ¼ or ½ inch away from the tree trunk. I’ve been trying to feel the energy of trees. I feel a faint buzzing feeling, the invisible wings of a bumblebee between me and the trees. I wonder if it is coming from me or from the trees. It seems so important to know what I am achieving. What I am capable of. If I am growing. If I am doing good in the world. Could I harm the trees with my games of perception?

I back away from the two trees, from the 30 or so trees who make a copse, who connect wide and deep with the root system they share which may be a hundred or two hundred years old, even if the trees above only live to an average of 50 to 75 years. I want to know so much. I observe this about myself.

I step back, walk a path from the trees towards the primary path. At about 10 feet away, I feel an impulse to turn back. I turn around and see the group as if for the first time. Hoarfrost covers the top branches of their trunks and with the play of light, they almost appear like sparkly-haloed ones. Dancers on the dance floor, striking a pose- en vogue. 

Thank you, I say aloud, though I’ve been told it’s not necessary to say thank you in order to express gratitude. Gratitude, I’ve been told, can arise in the moment of appreciation. It is a felt expression in this way, not a reflective gesture, not a rote experience. A full experience of expression arising. A body being. 

The noticing of a body being: 

I notice my hands tingle slightly. I notice when I breathe out, I relax my shoulders. I notice my vision softens at the edges. I notice an urge to take a photograph, to hold this moment even though I can never hold it. I have such appreciation, I realize. For these trees. For all trees. For this day. For all the days. For the hoarfrost. For the light of the sun.  

I walk a narrow path between two paths, the diagonal line connecting the two parallel lines which make up a parallelogram. How funny I remember parallelograms and geometry right now! I wonder why geometry is here? 

I notice the bush branches, the long grass and arching stems of wintered plants I can’t identify: whitened and heavy with frozen dew. Hoarfrost. Hoar, from har an old english word meaning elderly, old, venerable, gray. Frost from forst or frustaz meaning to freeze. 

The day will bring enough sun to melt the definition away. The grass will be only grass soon. The winter plant will be undressed, again. 

Life without unnecessary suffering, I hear from the recording, is possible when we accept what is, without resistance.

Soon enough, my mind is restful, my body being a body walking, a body listening, a body…