trees Archives - Page 2 of 7

Seeing the Forest and the Trees

November 17, 2019 by Denise Brake 4 Comments

During the week, our walks are usually contained by the constraining circle of the high school track as the after-school kids yell and run off some steam at the playground across the street. We walk to talk (or not), to relax, to energize, and at this time of year, to beat the fading light of day. Yesterday, we took to the woods, bursting out of the constraints and noise of the track.

We drove to Sibley State Park to hike Mt. Tom trail and to immerse ourselves in the forest. For months we have ‘been in the trees,’ so to speak, not knowing where we were or where we were going, no map to show us the way. We were living face to face with a distressful reality that held us by the chin and forced us to look into its eyes. With every ounce of my being, I have wanted to turn away.

But I looked, and I saw our stuck-ness and wondered how in the world we ended up in this position.

I saw splitting of some of our good, strong ties that should not have been severed.

I saw growth and invasion, like the bully Buckthorn. How do you fight it? How do you stop it from taking over?

I saw the charred remains of a randomly zapped member of the community, and wondered how we could have lost a brother.

More stuck-ness, more fracture, more protections falling away.

Now what?

We climbed to the top of Mt. Tom, one of the highest points within a 50-mile radius. I began to see the trees as a group, a large gray group made up of all those individual trees.

At the top of the lookout, I could see the whole forest, in all directions. The Red Oaks still held their rusty-orange canopy of leaves. The tall Cedars anchored the gray woods with their evergreen branches. The sturdy Oaks, Maples, and Basswoods, even without their leaves, made a foundation of strength and goodness. And the Birch trees, with their snowy white bark, lit up the grayness.

We returned to the exquisite quiet of the forest. We heard rustling of dried leaves and creaking of wood against wood in the treetops, like a forest lullaby. The bareness of the trees and the carpet of leaves allowed us to see the lay of the land, to see beyond any one tree that captured our attention.

I saw different things in different ways—a home of sticks high in a tree…

…a tipped-over, moss-covered Cedar that for some reason reminded me of Christmas…

…a fallen tree that had been ‘caught’ by its close friend, halting the free fall and scraping slide…

…a beautiful Cedar tree enveloped and held by the reaching branches of the Oaks…

…and a magical, mystical highway of moss that shone on the branches of some ancient Oak trees.

It’s inevitable that we get lost and stuck in the trees at times. It is the nature of Life. The forest and the trees, the big picture and the day-to-day challenges, the long view and the just-get-through-the-day are the dichotomies we meet, look in the face, and live with at any given time in our lives. Sometimes we have to bare it down, pare it down, in order to ‘see’ what we need to see. Even when we want to look away. Even when we desperately want it to be different. It is a both/and world, not an either/or. We can’t ignore the burned, fallen, dying, split, bullying aspects of our life anymore than we can the comforts, joys, goodness, and beauty. They all work together in our magical, mystical, shining lives—we the trees of the forest.

Hug a Tree, Plant a Tree—Your Body Will Thank You

April 28, 2019 by Denise Brake 4 Comments

National Arbor Day was Friday. It is a day that passes unnoticed by most people, I would guess. I would hate to speculate how many people do not even know what the word ‘arbor’ means. Would more people pay attention if we called it National Tree Day? Trees are important for many reasons, but their most fundamental process is to take CO2 (carbon dioxide) out of the air for use and storage and to release O2 (oxygen) back into the air—for us to breathe. That alone should have us hugging trees, planting trees, and celebrating trees every day, with every breath we take. They are literally life to us.

Trees have been the lifeblood for Chris for forty-five years now—daily interactions that go far beyond the benevolent exchange of gases. They are a part of our family—they are grown, planted, cared for, protected, and loved. Four years ago I wrote about watching/helping him plant a tree, and I thought I would share part of that post:

My dear husband Chris has been planting trees for over forty years–this flowering dogwood in front of the Odessa First United Methodist Church is just one of thousands that are the legacy of his hands and spade.

Watching him plant a large tree is a study in precision and ease and of sweat and dirt. He places the tree, then cuts a circle around it with his sharp spade. He moves the tree aside and expertly skims the sod from the circle. His foot steps the spade into the soil with a satisfying sound, and he lays that spadeful neatly beside the hole. He continues to step, lift, step, lift, step, lift–making it look easy, even as the sweat starts rolling off his face and arms. A sharp clunking sound and a jarring vibration in his hands indicate a rock, and with additional finesse and muscle, he removes it from the neat, straight-sided hole. With the handle of his spade, he measures the correct depth so the tree is not planted too deeply or too high. The width is one and a half times the diameter of the root ball. He gently rolls the tree into the hole, cuts the twine and unpins the burlap from the root ball, kneeling in the dirt he just overturned. By now his shirt is wet with sweat, and his cap and belt are dark-stained with the salty moisture. The tree is in its place, and with a vertical, cutting motion with the spade, he tamps the soil into the hole to anchor the roots in their new home. His ‘helper’ (me) turns on the water hose and trickles water as he tamps, and soon the hole is filled with dirt and water. The sod is chunked into strips and lined around the hole, and the bermed crater is soaked with a slow stream of water.

Chris has planted trees of every kind and size in four states, has grown them from seed, has pruned them, watered them, moved them, cared for them, and reluctantly cut them down. He has planted trees to memorialize people who have died and to celebrate people who are alive. He’s a tree man through and through.

So Arbor Day for us is like ‘Eat Some Healthy Food Day’ or ‘Take a Deep Breath Day’—we do it every day with little thought and with much thought. Trees are such an important, integral part of our lives—they sustain us at the most basic level of biology and at the highest stratum of spirit. And they do that for all of us, even when we are not aware.

We wander our woods and yard with excitement each Spring, noticing each tree, examining them for rabbit, deer, or winter wind damage. Some don’t make it through the winter (or the drought or whatever the challenge), but healthy color and expectant buds of new growth are signs that all is well. Others rally from the damage with Spring rains and warm temperatures, and they carry the scars through the rest of their lives. As I walked our yard this Arbor Day, I wondered how many trees Chris has planted on our one plus acre in our eleven years here. I stopped counting at one hundred. That was without counting most of the small Oaks that he grew from seed or most of the shrubs that are just starting to get their leaves or any of the trees on the wooded hillside. Here are just a few:

I know I’m kind of preaching to the choir—anyone who reads my blog already appreciates trees and all the other amazing flora and fauna of Nature. But at this time on our planet, this becomes more than a matter of appreciation. Planting trees is one of the most effective ways in which we can stave off the detrimental effects of climate change. The Nature Conservancy has pledged to plant one billion trees, and Microsoft will match your donation up to $50,000. The Arbor Day Foundation has a new ‘The Time for Trees Initiative’ to plant 100 million trees by 2022. If you sign up to support The Arbor Day Foundation, you will receive ten free trees to plant on your own. Few people can make the personal difference of actually growing and planting many thousands of trees like Chris has, but all of us can make a difference by being aware of the importance of trees, by donating to organizations that plant trees, and by planting and caring for more trees in our own lives. It truly does affect the most basic level of our biology and the highest stratum of our spirits.

Art in Nature

January 6, 2019 by Denise Brake 1 Comment

There are two people in my life that know Art (with a capital A) in a way that my ignorant and scientific mind will never be able to fathom. I don’t ‘know’ it or ‘get’ it, but I try, by association, to appreciate it at some level. One of those people is my sister-in-law Julie. She has worked as a docent at the Nelson Art Museum in Kansas City for decades, and her home is full of amazing art that is strange and foreign to my untraveled, untrained mind and eye. But there is something that links me to her taste and ability in the arts—Nature. She is also a skillful gardener, talented designer, and Nature-lover. Her whole backyard is a garden of delights with unique plant material, beautiful design, interesting sculptures and urns, and unprecedented plant pairings, yet looks natural and artfully wild all at the same time. We were fortunate to spend a couple of days with Chris’ brother and Julie, and they took us to the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens on the western outskirts of Kansas City. The day was warm with a crisp breeze—warm compared to the snow we had left in Minnesota, and crisp enough to need a jacket and hat.

The first wonder that greeted us was the strange, unique protuberances under a Bald Cypress tree. Thanks to Chris, our intrepid tree man, we learned these were cypress knees. The knees grow up from the roots of the Bald Cypress tree and have been the wonder of botanists for centuries. Bald Cypress trees are deciduous conifers (like our Northern Larch or Tamarack) that typically grow in swamps where the roots are waterlogged for at least part of the year. Some have theorized the knees provide the roots with air for gas exchange; others proclaim them to be structural to keep the shallow root system strong, and the tree upright. They are one of Nature’s wondrous mysteries!

Our next surprise was Monet painting at the edge of the pond! The French Impressionist painter Claude Monet was an advocate for plein air painting—in the open air—in order to capture the lighting at different times of the day and the colors during different seasons of the year.

We encountered a trio of Lacebarks as we strolled along the winter paths—Lacebark Elm, Lacebark Oak, and Lacebark Pine—all with interesting, exfoliating works-of-art bark.

Alight and rest for a moment on a dragonfly bench!

High in a Sycamore tree sat a hawk who seemed unconcerned with the passersby below. The American Sycamore grows stately and tall and holds its seed clusters most of the winter, like tiny balls decorating the bare tree for the holidays.

We walked through a tall, metal gate that fenced the deer out of the Gardens and entered the dry, wooded swales, a low-lying area by Wolf Creek where Cottonwood and Sycamore trees grew into giants. Flooded creek waters had washed the soil away from the roots of nearby trees creating tangled works of art.

One common workhorse of a tree in the mid-plains is the Osage Orange or Hedge Apple tree. The Osage Indians made superior bows from the tough, flexible wood. The yellow wood resists rot, burns hot, and is used for fence posts and railroad ties. The trees themselves were used for living fences before barbed wire was widely available and less expensive—the low branching trees with strong, sharp thorns grew ‘horse-high, bull-strong, and pig-tight’ as a hedge. The yellow wood extends into the roots…

…and the large yellow-green hedge ball or fruit ball contains a messy, milky sap that is supposed to repel insects and spiders.

We returned to the Gardens through another high gate after our hike through the woods and found ourselves on the Sculpture Garden trail. Elaborately pieced fairy houses—miniature natural architecture with colorful trinkets and stones—were placed at intervals along the trail.

Beautiful sculptures were tucked into the trees along the paved path, a melding of Art and Nature.

Like Monet, I appreciated the colors of the winter season at the Arboretum and Botanical Gardens—the muted green grass, the rusty oak leaves, the ice-blue sky and water, and the honey-colored hydrangea blooms. A painting in the making. I love how Mother Nature is the ultimate artist—the color and form in the feathers of a bird, the patterns and designs in the bark of a tree, the making and dispersal of seeds, and the color and contour of the inner characteristics of a tree. I liked the juxtaposition of whimsical, woodsy fairy houses made from the materials that surrounded them with the bold concrete and metal sculptures that had found their new homes among the trees. I am thankful for the time we had with family and friends on our trip south. There is something sacred and life-giving in sharing space, time, food, laughter, perspective, ideas, and talents. It’s what links us together on the wondrous, mysterious journey of Life.

Start by Surveying Your Territory—You May See the Dead Deer

November 25, 2018 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

It was unusual to see an eagle just sitting in a tree along the highway. They do that beside the River in search of fish or close to their nests. It’s usually hawks that sit in trees or on posts surveying the ditches for signs of mouse movement in patient anticipation of a tasty tidbit. Once I got his photo and we drove on, I commented to Chris how unusual it was to see an eagle in a tree beside the road. While I had been staring at the eagle, Chris had been surveying the road behind us where we were pulled over and the road before us where he noticed a dead deer in the ditch. I was totally focused on the eagle and didn’t see the dead deer—and that was why he was sitting there in the tree.

We continued to our destination—Wildwood County Park—for a chill-busting hike in the Maple and Basswood forest where some of the towering Maples are 300 years old. It is a well-managed forest; tractor tracks followed the ski trail where freshly cut logs of downed trees were piled in the scant snow, and I didn’t see any Buckthorn invading the woods.

We crossed a creek flowing under a layer of ice with bridges of fallen logs—some bear-sized, some mouse-sized—connecting one side with the other.

With no leaves on the trees and no ‘greenery,’ the trees themselves became the focal points—the trunks and branches, the colors and textures.

We found a ‘fort’ made of branches, a shelter from the winds on the ridge. Would you stay here?

One of the dead Basswood trees was obliterated by a Pileated Woodpecker. Huge white patches of drilled wood stuck out in the gray day, and a hefty pile of shavings gathered at the foot of the tree.

At another creek, two deer paths diverged from the creek into the woods. Which way would you go?

In any mature forest there are many downed trees—all a part of Nature’s recycling program. Oftentimes we forget about the extensive root systems that anchor trees and keep them nourished. An eroded bank exposed some of the roots of this oak tree, reminding me of the unseen network of support.

A large burl interrupted the smooth flow of a tree trunk. The dark, bumpy, tumor-like growth is caused by an injury, a genetic mutation, insects, or fungal and bacterial infections. The cells divide more rapidly than normal (like many cancers) or there is excessive cell enlargement (hypertrophy). Burls are coveted by woodworkers as the wood has unique and beautiful grain patterns due to knots from dormant buds and the swirls of the unusual growth.

The woods of Wildwood were bare and stripped down on this cool, gray day with interesting things to see and life lessons to learn if we are so inclined.

I’m sure the eagle spotted the dead deer when he was soaring high above the ground surveying his territory—it’s what they are meant to do. The deer would provide food for many days—if the eagle could safely access it. They are not swift on the wing to get out of the way of cars, so from his perch in the tree, he could watch for an opportunity to feed on the carcass. Seeing the eagle and not the deer reminded me that we ‘see’ what we look for, what we are focused on and many times, we don’t see what else is ‘in the picture.’ That’s when it helps to have other eyes and other points of view—Chris saw the deer—the reason why the eagle was there. He kept watch for danger in passing cars as I looked only at the eagle. The Wildwood showed how bridges connect one side with another—natural things like logs, laughter, love, and lively conversation. What creates our shelters from the wrathful winds and storms of life? We must build them log by log, bit by bit. Is it prayer or yoga or daily walks? What makes each of us resilient? What do we do with the old, dead parts that no longer work? We mine them for the morsels that will continue to sustain us, then discard the rest. We choose our paths, and all the while, we remember our network of support, that we don’t make our way in this world by ourselves, by only what is seen. Who holds us up? Who sends nourishment to us? Who helps build the shelters and bridges? The burled tree reminds us that ugly things can be transformed into beautiful creations. It usually takes time, hard work, dedication, and the ability to see beyond the ugliness. When we survey our territory and see and learn the lessons the eagle and the woods have to teach us, we can see the opportunities, not be blindsided by the dangers, stay safe in our shelters with those who sustain us, and create Beauty for all to see.

Paring Down to Bare

October 21, 2018 by Denise Brake Leave a Comment

“Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities of life.”

by Phil Harris and Bruce Reitherman from the Jungle Book

We are a fickle bunch. We all have our own ideas of what the seasons should and shouldn’t be—Fall’s too short, Winter’s too long, Summer’s too hot, did we even have Spring this year?! We love the Hallmark renditions of the seasons and wish for three perfect months of that. The last two weeks have been a pretty perfect Fall here in Central Minnesota—even with the caveat that an early hard freeze took away the slow ripening of the yellows, oranges, and reds and muted them all.

Yet Mother Nature does what she does. The leaves have been losing their ability to use chlorophyll for energy, their colors are emerging, they are falling from the trees, and gathering like a circle skirt in the grass below the branches.

Then Mother Nature sends in the wind! Our idyllic Autumn speeds up, and in one day whips most of the leaves to the ground. Wait! That was too fast! Once again, our perception of what is happening is not the same as reality. The Maple tree above is the last of our big three Maples to change color and drop its leaves. The Maple tree below is the first to change—it has been changing color for over a month. The wind won’t take down the leaves until they’re ready to let go. The paring down process proceeds in the prescribed time, even while influenced by hard freezes and stiff winds.

Our little Larch trees turned a rich amber-gold this year instead of bright yellow, adapting to the conditions.

The Crabapple leaves browned and curled with the freeze, and when the tree is bare of leaves, it will still hold on to the fruit.

The tall, columnar Poplars dropped their leaves while still mostly green, making fragrant, messy piles in the street. Even though the branches seem bare without the leaves, the swollen buds for next year’s leaves are already there!

While the Ash trees have lost their leaves weeks ago—the first to turn yellow, even before official Autumn arrives—this little beauty of a Maple waits until late October, its shimmering red-orange leaves take center stage.

Most trees are identified by their leaves—those of us who really know trees see the differences in shape, in bark, in seeds, in color and can name them by name without the leaves. But losing the identity of the leaves complicates things, makes it harder to tell who is who. However, a Kentucky Coffee Tree is still a Kentucky Coffee Tree even when the leaflets are gone.

Most of the White Oaks are bare—their non-spectacular brown leaves have fallen to the ground along with this year’s prolific crop of acorns.

But the Red Oaks are just coming into their sensational color and often hold on to their leaves into or through the Winter.

The varied Viburnum shrubs run the gamut from glossy green to yellow to freeze-induced brown—all on their own time schedule.

Fall is a miraculous time of year—the programmed shut-down of the growing season—the short and sweet growing season of Minnesota (reality or my perception? Or a little bit of both?) September brings the beginnings of the paring-down time, and by this time in October, the paring down cannot be denied as the bare branches let the sky show through. Grief is a paring-down time, too. It strips away the unnecessary parts of our lives like a whirlwind, and we are left with the bareness. We are raw and vulnerable. Often we feel like the structure of our world has collapsed. The Hallmark rendition of our lives has been crushed. Something precious has been taken from us. We sit in the bare pain, the bare unfairness of it all, the bare loss. What really matters? What are the bare necessities of my life? Who am I without this person, this job, this dream, this pet? With time and introspection, we realize we are still holding on to the fruit, the buds are there for the next growing season, and the seeds have already been planted. We look at ourselves and recognize the shape of our being and the texture of our character. We hold on until we’re ready to let go. And the Light shines through.

The Hard Way

September 23, 2018 by Denise Brake 4 Comments

It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness. –Lucius Annaeus Seneca

After our easy way of exploring the Saint Croix River on a paddlewheel boat, we picnicked beside the River to renew our energy for the afternoon. The paddleboat company, the town of Taylors Falls, and Interstate State Park seem to be intertwined. In fact, we started our hike by walking up one of the hilly side streets after crossing the one, busy main street through town. We passed an old railroad depot that I thought had been moved up there, but then I realized that we were hiking along the abandoned railroad way.

It soon became evident what a marvelous engineering feat it was to build a railroad through these bluffs!

We came to a place in the woods where the old railway had continued over a steep ravine on a bridge long gone except for some concrete pillars that now had colonies of wild ginger strewn at their feet.

We descended the wooded ravine, and at the bottom, the trail diverged—and we chose the hard way, the scenic way according to our guide Aaron Brake who had hiked here before. And so we followed another ravine and began the winding ascent to the very top of the bluff.

In the creek bed at the bottom of the ravine were shiny, glistening rocks of basalt.

Fallen trees created bridges of varying size and structure.

We climbed and climbed and though we were in the shady woods, the warm, humid day and exertion caused me to sweat like crazy. “I never sweat this much,” I exclaimed a number of times, and the only response I got from Emily was, “You need to up your workouts, Mom.” Finally we got to the top of the bluff and saw the River way down below.

On the trail down we explored more of the sandstone bluffs. One place was called Curtain Falls that now only flows after heavy rains and snow-melt.

Living on a steep, rocky bluff is a hard way for a tree to survive. I was amazed at the survival strategies we saw from some of the plant life, like this tree root scaling the rocky cliff, clinging to any soil it could find.

The way down was ‘easier’ than climbing to the top but was in no way easy. There were many places where wooden stairs helped us get down the steep rock faces.

We arrived at the campground of Interstate State Park—the parking lot and camping spots were full on this Labor Day weekend. But our hike wasn’t over yet—the trail continued along the River, through trees and over rocks, back to the entrance of the park where we had boarded the boat earlier in the day. Now we could see the River from the top of the rock cliffs adjacent to the water.

Rock climbers are welcome at the park, and we saw many ropes and climbers. That’s a hard way of getting up and down the cliffs!

It was beautiful hiking along the rocky cliffs among stately pines, wild blueberries, and various types of ferns. What a different perspective of the Saint Croix River we had from the edges of the huge rocks compared to floating down the middle of the River.

By the time we returned to the entrance of the park, my feet hurt, my legs were sore, and I wanted to sit down for a while. When I polled the young twenty and thirty-year-olds about the difficulty of the hike, they proclaimed it ‘moderate.’ I had the word ‘challenging’ in my mind, but chalked that up to our 30-year age difference and my need to ‘up my workouts.’ I’m glad we took the hard way, the rough road, the scenic way. It really was so beautiful, and it impelled me to exert and sweat and do ‘the work.’ It led us to the heights of that scenic River and the greatness of Nature. There are times in our lives when the hard way is presented to us, when we don’t have a choice, no matter how badly we want an easy option. Marie Curie said, “I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.” So what do we do? We anchor our support ropes, take it slow and easy, use the steps and bridges to get us down the steep parts and over the ravines, and we do the work. We make progress, we do what is right, and in our own way, we are led to greatness.

After the easy way and the hard way, we ended our day with the ancient way…to be continued…

The Branches of My Being

June 17, 2018 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

When I was a child, supple-muscled and fresh-faced, I had my own room. It had blue walls, blue and white curtains and bedspread, and white furniture with gold trim. I made my bed every morning and had all my treasures arranged on my dressers just so. I liked to keep things neat and tidy. Cleaning was a Saturday morning ritual not to be messed with, and I learned to be thorough and efficient (because the ‘fun’ stuff could only be done after the cleaning.) It also became a meditation of sorts, with my body moving through the mundane motions while my young mind processed all the thoughts and e-motions of my life.

Even though decades of raising three kids and an aging body have softened my ‘neat freak’ mind, I still like to clean and keep things in order. So I have been particularly bothered these past years by the dead branches that hang from some of the trees in the yard and the woods. I look at them and feel compelled to trim away the dead, thinking they would look so much better. But my tree-man husband puts off my compelling aesthetic arguments for the sake of the trees. Certain trees and shrubs should only be trimmed at certain times of the year in order to preserve the health of the tree or to promote blooming. Not only when the leaves are looking pretty and one is simply bothered by low- or dead-hanging branches! Then when the leaves are gone, I don’t even notice the dead ones on the bare silhouette of the tree! So the dead branches remain, and like any other thorn under our skin that we live with, our relationship with it changes.

The reason this old Oak tree has some dead branches is because of a physiological phenomenon called self-pruning. When a branch does not produce as much carbohydrate by photosynthesis as it uses in respiration, food, minerals and water are withheld from the branch. The tree seals off the limb with resins, and the branch eventually dies.

Access to light is the most important reason for self-pruning. Trees that grow in open areas rarely shed their branches for this reason, but trees that grow in the woods do not have enough light to maintain all the branches. Self-pruning happens frequently with small twigs, and as the crown of a tree gets bigger, the large, lower branches may also die.

Shade intolerant trees like Aspen, Paper Birch, Red Pine, Elm, and Ash are known for sequestering food from lower branches, causing them to die. The actual shedding of the dead branch occurs over time as it weakens from water, fungi, and insects and then comes down with wind, snow, or animals.

In a forest of Red Pines, the lower dead branches are of varying lengths with many short, truncated staubs that look like steps up the straight trunk of the tree.

The dead branches, those thorns under my neat-freak skin, no longer bother me like they once did. Now I see them as an essential part of the story of the tree. They are expressive parts of the younger tree, when the sun shone strong and bright, when nothing impaired its growth and vitality. They are part of the history of the tree. Just like us. We have these parts of ourselves from our younger, growing self and life that die and get truncated. We don’t have to cut them away, no longer to be seen or thought of again. Each is an essential part of our stories. I still put my treasures on the dressers just so—they are even the same dressers, though the white and gold paint was stripped off to reveal the mahogany wood underneath. Every past interest, friend, longing, hobby, and experience are all branches of my being.

When I Found a Tree and a Woman

April 29, 2018 by Denise Brake 4 Comments

It was during one of the hardest times in my life when I found a tree. It wasn’t that it was hard to find or anything—I had literally driven past it hundreds of times in my whole life, and it was a huge tree. It stands in Pioneer Park just east of a little log cabin on display for picnickers or interested Highway 14 by-passers. During the annual Arts Festival, its expansive crown offers a shady respite in the July heat for snow cone eaters and tired babies in strollers. Many people have leaned against the wide trunk while listening to the lilting flute of Brulé and other music performers on the small stage tucked among craft and food booths.

It was during one of the happiest times in my life when I found a woman. I actually found her after I serendipitously found her son—or he found me—in the same town where the huge Cottonwood tree lives. She lived in a suburban split level house in Kansas City, Missouri, and I spent many nights and days in her home before Chris and I married, and she cautiously, quietly, graciously welcomed me into her life and the life of her family. She became my Mother-in-law the day after we drove by the old Cottonwood on the evening of our wedding rehearsal.

When I found Grandmother Cottonwood, twenty-three years had passed since the happy day we drove by her to celebrate our marriage. When I found this tree, my soul felt like it was dying. I was confused, grief-stricken, weary to the bone, unable to find my way forward on any given day. I sat staring out the window during the days and walked into the chilly nights with nowhere to go—aimlessly trying to flee the pain while at the same time yearning for something. I had been blindsided—me and my whole family—with no left tackle to see what was coming and to protect us. Nobody knew what to say or what to do. One evening as I walked through the park, I walked over to the ample trunk of Grandmother Cottonwood and laid my body against her rough bark. Her roots were large as trees and created a trough of tenderness for me to recline into, and I felt held, comforted, and understood in her solid silence.

This woman named Ruth became my second mother, as I was four hundred fifty miles from my own mom. I helped her do dishes and set the table for family meals, decorate the Christmas tree, and move furniture. She helped me understand my father-in-law, learn how to make a great salad and to live simply and well. She was my protector when I was pregnant, and she held every grandchild—not just our three—with the tenderness and wonder of a miracle happening before her eyes.

Often on my nightly walks all those years later when I was once again near my home, near my own mom, I would go to the park, to the Cottonwood tree and lean against the deeply grooved bark. My painful, nervous energy would flow into the ground, swallowed up by the roots of the old tree. I would look up into the bare winter branches and wonder about all the changes this old tree had seen, all the storms it had lived through, all the celebrations it had witnessed, and all the creatures who had lived among its branches. My body would calm down, my mind would reset, and my soul would flicker back to life.

In those happy days when I found my husband, when I found Ruth, when I found motherhood, my joy was multiplied in all kinds of ways. My roots grew down, and my branches grew up and out. Later, in the hard days, I had lost my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, my bearings, my dreams—my branches were being torn from me and my long-held convictions were being up-rooted—and I found the wise, old Grandmother Cottonwood.

It’s been fifteen years today since Ruth died, and yet she lives on within me because of the many gifts she gave to me and to her whole family. She gifted us with her laughter, her quiet strength, and her deep love. I am ever so glad I found her. I am grateful for finding Grandmother Cottonwood during my hard time, whose quiet, old strength and wise ways helped to heal my battered and broken soul and calmed my weary body. I am grateful to my Mom, who expertly took these photographs of the beautiful old Cottonwood, since I am one hundred eighty miles from both of them. At certain times in our lives we find people or trees or animals who save our souls during hard times and enhance our lives during happy times. Welcome them cautiously, quietly, and graciously.

There is a Reason for Everything–NOT Everything Happens for a Reason

March 25, 2018 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

I like things to make sense. When things don’t make sense in my mind, I ask questions—of myself and others. Information helps a person make sense of a situation. There have been a lot of things happening that don’t make any sense—why would a young person plan and carry out a school shooting or multiple bombings? Finding a motive or reason for such action is paramount to the investigation. Information is gathered from multiple sources, in multiple ways in order to figure it out. Many times though, the answer to the question of why a person acted as they did is never fully known.

Science also asks questions in order to find answers—it is the foundation of the scientific method. Information is gathered, past research is perused, a pertinent hypothesis formulated, the methodology carefully planned out and followed to exactitude. Did the results confirm the hypothesis? What conclusions were learned from the experiment? Questions, answers, more questions. And so it goes.

Questions about Nature have been studied by science for hundreds of years, and today the questions are just as important as ever. Why is the Monarch butterfly population in decline? https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-ento-020117-043241 http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/agrawal/documents/InamineetalAgrawal2016Oikosmonarchconservation_000.pdf

Is our water safe? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1253773/

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/07/13/minnesota-adds-pollution-sources-impaired-waters-list

What is killing our bee populations, and what is the impact on agriculture? https://www.uky.edu/~jast239/reprints/Geography%20Compass%202016.pdf http://mjpa.umich.edu/files/2014/08/2014-BiancoCooperFournier-HoneyBee.pdf

What happens when forests are clear-cut? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un2yBgIAxYs https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160415125925.htm

Scientific experiments seek to answer these complicated questions. Seldom is there a singular cut-and-dry reason; seldom is the answer an easy one. Mostly, answers lead to more questions. But each answer, each piece of information that is discovered about the situation, adds to the body of knowledge. It is a contribution to the big picture, and each piece shows a pathway to action that can be taken to solve the problem.

As for the things that don’t make sense in this world or in our lives, the same applies. Rarely is there just one reason; rarely is the reason a simple explanation. However, I hypothesize that there is always a reason for everything—not in the insensitive platitude ‘everything happens for a reason’ kind of way, but in the scientific ’cause and effect’ way. There was a reason why they gathered the guns and made the bombs, there was a reason they felt like this was an appropriate thing to do, there was a reason their thinking was so clouded and deluded, and there was a reason they fell through the cracks. As with everything, there is a long, complicated lineage of reasons why things occur. Answers lead to more questions. But information leads to understanding—that’s why questions are so important. That’s why multiple sources are important. That’s why experts are important. All help to configure the big picture, so we can take multiple pathways to solve these heart-breaking problems.

Dodging Cars and Bullets

March 11, 2018 by Denise Brake 2 Comments

Have you ever woken in the morning and even before you open your eyes or move from your last position of sleep you feel weight pressing in on your mind and body? That’s how I woke on Friday. Sometimes it’s a low barometric pressure squeezing in on me; sometimes it’s from the energy-draining not-enough-sleep for a couple of nights; other times it’s a worry, a fight, or an anniversary of something only your body remembers that your mind does not want to recall. It’s when you drag your body out of bed and hope that breakfast and caffeine will boost your energy and dissipate the pressure.

Do animals ever feel that way? How do deer wake and show up for their day? They sleep in the snow and cold, have to forage for their daily food, and at times have to dodge cars and bullets. Sounds like a recipe for having a horrible, no good, very bad day. But I don’t think they do.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d. I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition. They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins. They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God. Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things. Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago. Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. –excerpt from Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

When I was young, I thought animals were easier to understand than humans, so I wanted to be a veterinarian. I loved this poem by Walt Whitman, even in its irreverent way. I argued with Walt’s line that ‘not one is respectable,’ for I had great respect for animals, especially my horses. Before we were married, Chris made me a present of a framed picture of this poem in calligraphy with a drawing of a horse. I recite the first lines often in my head when I feel the pressure of living in our human world.

Chris, in his wisdom of knowing me for thirty-eight years, suggested on Friday that we go to the pine forest in the snow, to where the animals live, to where I could get out of my head and out of my funk, to where the old pines whisper their secrets. I begrudgingly agreed, even as my body wanted to just splay itself on the floor with a blanket. So in the late afternoon, we drove the short distance to Warner Lake County Park to bathe in the solitude of the pine forest.

The little creek that runs into the lake wasn’t frozen, and the trail had been ‘groomed’ for cross-country skiing.

Walking was relatively easy on the groomed trail (not on the ski tracks, of course), but hard work in the short areas where we blazed a trail. Energy returned to my body as we ventured deeper into the woods.

The forest was a constellation of light and shadow, with outlines and crowns of snow.

The late day sun cast long shadows of the long trees. Animal tracks cut across the trails—their footprints leaving the history of their day.

In a small clearing, we saw a shining young pine, enveloped and radiant in the Winter sunshine, as the old, wise guardians surrounded it.

It was peaceful and quiet in the snowy forest—a silky balm for my out-of-sorts mind and body. I was a welcome visitor in the animals’ house, with no host needed. They were willing to share their majestic home with seekers of beauty and peace.

Our lives are a constellation of light and shadow. Some days we live in the darkness, and often we don’t even know what is casting the shadow. It feels like we are dodging the flu, or the axe, or the bullet. The recipe is written, and it seems to spell disaster. But what if the recipe for your day is written in pencil? What if sitting in prayer or meditation erases worry? What if ten minutes of exercise erases pain? And talking to your friend takes away the blues? We are each a shining star, like the radiant young pine tree in the forest. Dissatisfaction melts away to gratitude. The mania of owning things morphs into a willingness to share. Anxiety and worry transform into placid self-containment. The whispered secrets of the ancient guardians begin to work their way into the tracks of our days. And we live like the animals and are happy.

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