Trees – alive in the sea of information

a land apart

Foxtail Pine along the Cottonwood Lakes Trail. Robin L. Chandler, 2024

“Over that [1929] summer, [Georgia] O’Keefe worked her way through the standard paintings of santos, Ranchos de Taos church, and Taos Pueblo itself, but hints of her later work appeared as well. Particularly in a series of paintings of penitence crosses against a backdrop of a southwestern night sky, O’Keefe illustrated the spiritual inspiration she found in the New Mexico landscape. Perhaps the best-known painting from the summer, however, is The Lawrence Tree…..O’Keefe described the painting…..’I had one particular painting, that tree in Lawrence’s front yard as you see when you lie under it on the table with the stars it looks as tho it is standing on its head.’…..the work shows O’Keefe’s sensual appreciation of New Mexico as well as her engagement with [D. H.] Lawrence‘s writing. Lawrence had described the tree himself in St. Mawr, and Lawrence’s work remained in O’Keefe’s library throughout her life. Although Lawrence typically saw the tree with some ambivalence, O’Keefe made it entirely her own. In the painting, the tree reaches up and seems to kiss the sky, much as O’Keefe herself once said she wanted to do.” (177)

Excerpt from Flannery Burke‘s From Greenwich Village to Taos: Primitivism and Place at Mabel Dodge Luhan’s (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2008)

“The rivers of fluid fire that suddenly fell out of the sky and exploded on the earth near by, as if the whole earth had burst like a bomb, frightened her from the very core of her, and made her know secretly and with cynical certainty, that there was no merciful God in the heavens. A very tall, elegant pine-tree just above her cabin took the lightning, and stood tall and elegant as before, but with a white seam spiraling from its crest, all down its tall trunk, to earth. The perfect scar, white and long as lightning itself. And every time she looked at it, she said to herself, in spite of herself: There is no Almighty loving God. The God there is shaggy as the pine-trees, and horrible as the lightning. Outwardly, she never confessed this. Openly, she thought of her dear New England Church as usual. But in the violent undercurrent of her woman’s soul, after the storms, she would look at that living seamed tree, and the voice would say in her, almost savagely: What nonsense about Jesus and God of Love, in a place like this! This is more awful and more splendid. I like it better. The very chipmunks, in their jerky helter-skelter, the blue jays wrangling in the pine-tree in the dawn, the grey squirrel undulating to the tree-trunk, then pausing to chatter at her and scold her, with a show of fearlessness, as if she were the alien, the outsider, the creature that should not be permitted among the trees, all destroyed the illusion she cherished, of love, universal love. There was no love on this ranch. There was life, intense, bristling life, full of energy, but also, with an undertone of savage sordidness.” (167-168)

Excerpt D. H. Lawrence‘s St. Mawr (New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1997)

directness and certainty

Lodgepole Pines along the Little Lakes Trailhead. Robin L. Chandler, 2024

“In the beginning there were stories and the stories were made of Earth. Rocks and rivers, mountains and sea, these were the gods and the gods moved within them.” (p.225)

In 2013, the entirety of the novel Moby Dick was translated into emojis, those little ideograms of smiling faces and pets and objects that populate our phones and number around 1000…their appeal seems to be based on the strange and paradoxical combination of specificity and obscurity that they embody…they purport to transcend cultural difference and cut a line of sincerity and clarity straight to the nebulous heart of what we mean to say. Yet for all that, emojis, particularly in combination, open wormholes of ambiguity.” (p.228)

“Yet directness and certainty remain a dream despite our words, despite our codes, despite our cyphers. Who can state for sure the meaning of Moby Dick? ‘Of whales in paint; in teeth; in wood; in sheet-iron; in stone; in mountains; in stars’: Ishmael, its narrator, could find them everywhere. Yet the whale itself, the white whale, the named whale, is elusive. What did it mean to Ahab? Why the obsession, the desire, the pursuit? Everything can mean something else, if only we could agree what. Augustine wondered whether we could decide simply by pointing and naming. Remember that Moby Dick, whose title names its prey, itself begins with an act of naming: ‘Call me Ishmael.’ Yet in saying that, it is clear, too, that any name would have sufficed. The willow is also ‘sallow,’ is also ‘osier.’ In such simple acts lie a world of ambiguity, and a history concealed from the eyes of the everyday. Nothing is steady. Meaning sways like the hull of a ship. Ahab, with leg of wood, and scars on his body like the ‘seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree,’ hunts over ocean and sea in a vessel of timber from which a mast extends like a great oak into the sky above. Nailed to it is a gold doubloon and at its top a man sits, in the masthead, watching the horizon, searching.” (p.228-229)

Excerpts from Aengus Woods’ Of Trees in Paint; In Teeth; In Wood; In Sheet-Iron; In Stone; In Mountains; In Stars published in Katie Holten’s The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape

gazing in reverence

Walking the Owens River waking Mt. Tom. Robin L. Chandler, 2023

Tracing the way back home here,

I might round North Mountain

on roads hung along cliffwalls,

timbers rising in switchbacks,

or I could take the watercourse

way winding and circling back,

level lakes broad and brimming,

crystalline depths clear and deep

beyond shorelines all lone grace

and long islands of lush brocade.

Gazing on and on in reverence

across realms so boundless away,

I come to the twin rivers that flow through together.

Two springs sharing one source,

they follow gorges and canyons

to merge at mountain headlands

and cascade on, scouring sand out and mounding dunes

below peaks that loom over islands swelling into hills,

whitewater carrying cliffs away in a tumble of rocks,

a marshy tangle of fallen trees glistening in the waves.

Following along the south bank that crosses out front,

the snaking north cliff that looms behind, I’m soon

lost in thick forests, the nature of dusk and dawn in full view,

and for bearings, I trust myself to the star-filled night skies.

Poem 36 by Hsien Ling-yun (385 – 433) a buddhist poet who loved mountains and streams

from Mountain Home: The Wilderness Poetry of Ancient China

Translated by David Hinton

departure and arrival

After a year confined, while Shiva created and destroyed, the open road beckoned. The horizon open, the land infinite, and my mind seemed lotus-like, unbound. And Earth shared: sky, mountains, trees, deserts, meadows, and rivers. My soul replenished: hope glimmers.

Clockwise: Thunderstorm over Wheeler Peak, Taos, NM; waterfall at Whitney Portal, Lone Pine, CA; sentinel trees at Whitney Portal, Lone Pine, CA; monsoon over Mt. Langley, Lone Pine, CA; and the San Francisco Peaks from Bonita Meadow, Flagstaff, AZ. Watercolors by Robin L. Chandler, 2021.

our pear tree slumbers

Winter orchard. Robin L. Chandler, 2020.

January nights remain long and chilly, but the sun grows warmer with each day. Some months from now, our tiny Oakland orchard of apricot, fig, plum and pear will provide a wonderful harvest. With luck, we will have a bountiful year blessed with cakes and pies and many jars of jam and preserved fruit. But should we have a premature spring, early blossoms may be lost to windy Pacific storms, severely limiting our harvest. Never one to give up hope, I gaze at the trees and pray they adapt to humankind’s “gift”: climate change. Sitting in their presence, I am reading, captivated by Richard Powers‘ novel The Overstory. In the book, one of the characters, Forestry scientist Patricia Westerford, writes about and speaks of the Giving Trees:

“…she remembers the Buddha’s words: A tree is a wondrous thing that shelters, feeds, and protects all living things. It even offers shade to the axmen who destroy it…love for trees pours out of her – the grace of them, their supple experimentation, the constant variety and surprise. These slow, deliberate creatures with their elaborate vocabularies, each distinctive, shaping each other, breeding birds, sinking carbon, purifying water, filtering poisons from the ground, stabilizing the micro climate. Join enough living things together, through the air and underground, and you wind up with something that has intention. Forest. A threatened creature…People aren’t the apex species they think they are. Other creatures – bigger, smaller, slower, faster, older, younger, more powerful – call the shots, make the air, and eat the sunlight. Without them, nothing.“

love and change

Cottonwood in the Owens Valley. Robin L. Chandler 2016

The lights dimmed and the spotlight focused on the figure center stage guitar in hand; she began to sing, the voice a little smoky and raspy, working towards the high, round notes so clear in my memory. Soon, “Saint” Joan Baez sang two of my favorites by Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie respectively, “With God on Our Side” and “Deportee,”. Both songs are stories of love and tragic loss. Each story holding forth the possibility of redemption, that we can learn from our mistakes and take right action.

Election eve, the significance of this sainted singer was not lost on any of us in the audience. This deeply disturbing election season nearly over, we drank deeply of the songs offered us, believing in the promise of a world where all persons count, no matter their origin or identity, and that the fabric of our society is stronger, when our diverse threads are woven together. Listening, my heart responds, I will march again to her call to action to build a better and loving world.

Between songs, she spoke about her belief in the ideas and aspirations expressed by Bernie Saunders as he crossed the county this year connecting with the hopes and ideals of a new generation. But she also spoke admiringly of the courage of Hilary Clinton, withstanding the barrage of lies and intimidation hurled at her these last months.

On my recent trip to the Eastern Sierras, many a cottonwood was growing, singularly, isolated from other trees in the valley, telling a story, stately and proud. In some cases, it was unclear if a tree was near death because of lack of water, or if it was merely beginning the long winter sleep. These trees standing statuesque on a parched landscape, with the majestic sierras as their backdrop, called to mind the elm trees, deemed Liberty Trees by the colonists turned patriots at the time of our Revolution. The first such elm was located in Boston and celebrated in the revolutionary poetry of Thomas Paine. Soon Liberty Trees were anointed in towns and cities throughout the colonies; these majestic trees witnessed calls to action, celebrated victories, and mourned defeats. Trees bear witness to our story, and with this act they become part of our own story, symbols of strength, longevity, knowledge, loss, and redemption.

We are participating in the most historic election of our time. The stakes are high; it feels like the future of our nation and perhaps the world weighs upon our ballot box. At times, I have been paralyzed with fear of what may come. But I also know that there are persons, my fellow citizens, who think differently than I and will vote differently than I, and they too are fearful of change. And yet, we are all part of the same country, and we must move forward together, whatever changes comes. I think of the lone cottonwood in the Owens Valley, thirsty. Is the tree telling a story of suffering brought on by a changing climate? Is it hanging on for dear life hoping for the redemption winter snow in the mountains will bring? Is this cottonwood a symbol of my republic gasping, near death? Listening to the tree, my heart responds. While I fear the change that the election could bring, I will be strong like a tree, making connections, bringing the long-view, and sharing all the knowledge and wisdom found deep in my core. I will take right action continuing to build a better and loving world respecting the rights of all living beings.

Not to tarry, not to roam. We said we’d join her, she said she’ll meet us when we come

Winter plum. Robin L. Chandler Copyright 2016.

On his recent bluegrass album, The Happy Prisoner, Robert Earl Keen recorded the Wayfaring Stranger with Natalie Maines. The plaintive lyrics haunt me:

“I am a poor wayfaring stranger, while travelling through this world of woe.

Yet there’s no sickness, toil or danger. In that bright world to which I go.

I’m going there to see my mother. She said she’d meet me when I come.

I’m only going over Jordan. I’m only going over home.”

A classic American folk and gospel song, it resonates with one of Buddhism’s four Noble Truths that all is suffering, all is woe, and impermanence is one of the great causes of suffering. But a bright world exists to which we can go.

Last week the rains stopped and the fruit trees blossomed, a month before expected, but nonetheless spectacular for their early arrival. The plum trees in my yard shimmered in the February sunset, still winter by the calendar. The blossoms will not remain long. But long enough to tarry in my dreams, haunt my imagination, and find their way from brush to canvas to capture the beauty of impermanence.

This weekend we will say goodbye to a good friend, my second mother, who has gone over Jordan. There is no sickness, toil or danger, in that bright world to which she goes. Someday we’ll join her, going there, no more to roam. She said she’d meet us when we come. She said she’s only going home.

At the edge

Edge of the void. Robin L. Chandler Copyright 2016.

At the edge of the void, one can see the emptiness from which all matter comes into being, and from which all things evaporate. Form gives us a means to learn and build confidence; form provides a path to experience the teachings and verify the teacher. Like an elephant’s footprint, form is a sign, here today, but gone tomorrow. Objects are material, ever changing in state; the spirit alone is precious. Tibetan Buddhist Monks create beautiful sand mandalas only to sweep them away to symbolize the transitory nature of material life. Their creation and their dissolution is an act of faith, revealing the beauty and truth of impermanence. At the edge of the void, one finds the beginning of the possible.

Figasus: what do you tend to?

Figtree for Morris Graves. Robin L. Chandler Copyright 2015.

Our backyard is blessed with fruit trees. In early summer, the apricots and plums ripen and soon find their way as jam, the taste of sunshine on a winter’s day. And now with fall’s arrival the Flanders Fig has ripened; with the pear and persimmon trees soon to follow. This week we will celebrate Sukkot, the Jewish agricultural festival celebrating the harvest. And so we tend to our figs. Even in this severe drought the trees are doing their utmost to participate in the cycle of life; and for this I am grateful and give thanks. But I worry. How much longer can they last with such little rain? Come hither El Nino, and when you come, don’t be shy, bring your entire Cumulonimbus family.

Harvested figs have become star performers in a galette, in salads, and rumors in our home, suggest a caramelized future for pizza pies. We planted the fig tree five years ago and over the years, we have tended the tree, watering, pruning branches, and building supports ensuring it would could grow tall and strong. This is the first bountiful harvest, so we eagerly await the fruit. The tree stands over fifteen feet in height, it’s branches tending towards the sun to help ripen the fruit. Figs are a favorite of the creatures with which we share this Oakland neighborhood; so, fig picking must be timed perfectly. The fruit needs to be ripe enough, but not so ripe as to become easy pickings for the raccoons, jays and squirrels that call our backyard home.

Tending my ripening figs, I contemplated their figgy future. What if the figs could break Newton’s Law of Gravity (avoiding a Fig Newton future) and fly like Pegasus? If figs could fly, what would they intend: remain on the branch, the majority content to a predetermined future filling the stomach’s of mammals and birds; or continue the cycle of rebirth, gravitating to mother earth seeding a new fig tree? If figs could fly, would they break their natural tendency and fly away: planting themselves in a land of gentle rain, or perhaps seek further enlightenment through a closer relationship with the sun? For the remainder of this day, I shall remain in this peaceful garden, seeking liberation from my own samsara by practicing self-discipline, participating in meditative concentration, and considering the wisdom of emptiness. Hoping that should I ever achieve nirvana, I would return as a Bodhisattva, attending to Figuasus and fig lovers on their flightpaths to enlightenment.

Beauty appears when one feels deeply

Sketch of a Coastal Live Oak in the UC Santa Cruz meadow. Robin L. Chandler, Copyright 2015.

Who could imagine a university nestled amongst stands of redwood trees and situated upon a hilltop meadow on the edge of the Monterey Bay. In this aspect, and in many other ways, UC Santa Cruz is extraordinary. Every morning I bike up the hill through the meadow to campus, a worthy challenge, and every evening, work complete for this day, I descend the pasturage, enjoying the emerging stars cast against a Technicolor ocean sunset. When I can take a midday break, I walk to the meadow and sketch. There, amazing Coastal Live Oaks, joined by their companion Bay Laurels and Buckeyes, bridge the forest and the meadow. A particularly compelling Quercus Agrifolia has caught my attention; a massive tree that must be at least sixty feet high, and could be over 250 years old. The change it has witnessed. It’s trunk is massive, contorted and gnarled, its branches an intricate web, and its crown rounded and dense. It sits majestically at the crest of the hill, the redwoods, the meadow and the bay as it’s theatrical backdrop. Beauty was the subject of my last blog and my search, blessedly continues.

It is difficult to take a break from the demands of a busy work schedule, but sketching the tree offers food for my imagination, an opportunity to refresh my soul, and ground myself before returning to my responsibilities. Henry David Thoreau danced on the edge of a Buddhist koan, with this 1859 journal entry “I have many affairs to attend to, and feel hurried these days. Great works of art have endless leisure for a background, as the universe has space. Time stands still while they are created. The artist cannot be in a hurry. The earth moves round the sun with inconceivable rapidity, and yet the surface of the lake is not ruffled.” My friend Chip Sullivan, artist and author, states in Drawing the Landscape that we “draw because it is the act of seeing and thinking clearly…it allows a concept to evolve…it resides between freedom and structure…drawing can also be a meditation…Zen art is the expression of the artist’s own inner state of going nowhere to a timeless dimension.

A few months ago, a very dear friend was reading a book about the National Archives historic photograph collection. The page was open to an iconic photograph taken by Dorothea Lange of hungry people in breadlines in San Francisco during the Great Depression. That single moment, set me on a journey of discovery, a road I still travel – reading about Dorothea and her first husband Maynard Dixon and viewing reproductions of their work in books, films and in museums. In the Fall 2014, PBS American Masters series broadcast the film Grab a Hunk of Lightning portraying the life and work of the masterful artist Dorothea Lange. A section of the film included Lange speaking about the meditative experience of making art:

“When you are working well, it is first of all, a process of getting lost, so that you live for maybe 2 – 3 hours as completely as possible the visual experience…you feel you have lost yourself, your identity, you are only an observer…all your instinctive powers are in operation and you don’t know why you are doing things really. Sometimes you annihilate yourself; that is something one needs to be able to do. There are moments when time stands still. You hope it will wait for you that fraction of a second…beauty appears when one feels deeply. Art is an act of total attention.”