On Sunday, July 23rd, I got a chance to introduce my friend Elaine to Muir Woods and the grandeur of the redwoods. Elaine was my roomie during “The Science of What Connects Us,” the 2017 conference sponsored by the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in Oakland, California.
Elaine has become by travel buddy and it is no surprise that we were on the same wavelength when we decided to spit up and go our separate ways when we arrived at Muir Woods.
We each had our own deep and spiritual encounters with the redwoods. Elaine took my advice and purchased a little book entitled Meditations on Muir Woods at the Welcome Center.
And I wandered the woods reminiscing about my redwood ancestral roots planted generations ago in Humboldt County. As I walked the paths of Muir Woods I deeply felt the debt I owed to my father, Neil, who introduced me to these timeless giants. I grew up in Berwyn, a suburb of Chicago. But often the family would make the pilgrimage to visit my father’s side of the family in California. Most had settled in the Bay area. But usually our journey would also go north to Eureka. And always, always, we would pause to pay homage to the redwoods. He taught me to love them. He taught me about their beauty, but also about their strength, which can withstand fire and, even when felled by man or nature, can spring back to life by seeding future generations.
I paused in Muir Woods and composed this prayer for my father:
Daddy of the Redwoods
Father mine
Tears of gratitude fill my eyes
As I remember you–
Inoculating me at an early age
With the appreciation
Of this giant
And yet so delicate
Beauty
Thank you
When a mother redwood dies, she seeds future generations. Here is a family group growing tall and strong. Mother tree lives on.
I do not live among the redwoods, but I do live in the midst of many trees that surround my Michigan home. My father’s love of the redwoods translated into a love of all trees. It is a gift I inherited. Thanks dad!
Recent Comments