BY THE LIGHT IN THE TREES-- part III

BY THE LIGHT IN THE TREES part III

Haiku:

In space between time You can find your faith by light in the trees

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By the light in the trees Our church is built with stain glass branches, wild flower pews, beehive pulpits and hymns that blow like music through the cold colored leaves in fall By the light in the trees The word G â&#x20AC;&#x201C; O - D is spelled with letters that have not been written, described by a faith that has not been spoken, and interpreted by a light that shines through the birch and redwoods and oaks and madrones and pines and firs and olive By the light in the trees We show our children a universe that is unfathomable and beautiful and alive and moving-- which holds us in its immense web that connects us to a family of all things By the light in the trees We tell them stories and play games in glowing shafts of radiance By the light in the trees We build cold memorials in ancient olive orchards, celebrations of life in old theatres named after a bird on fire, beach glass alters in old mossy oaks, driftwood shelters with holy bonfires on beaches, burning temples in the black desert nights,

By the light in the trees We sit quietly for hours with our small children and look for blue glass on sunny seashore sands and make

By the light in the trees

up exotic stories how a magic tide brought them from

We sit quietly and tell someone how much

far away places

we love them

By the light in the trees

By the light in the trees

We show our children how to find fairy circles

We walk sadly and tell someone how much

around small mushroom towns, and how to find wild

we miss them

orchards and make daisy chains to hang like garlands over the secret door and place that blue glass as a

By the light in the trees

sacred offering for the fairy princess who lives behind

We help someone, forgive someone, reach out to

the curtain of light

someone, be true for someone who we have never met and will never see again

By the light in the trees We photograph our inspirations, water colors our dreams, illustrate our hopes, sketch our self portraits

By the light in the trees

By the light in the trees

A father stands proudly for his family and holds forth

The reflection of light is revealed by teaching our

to say life sometimes does not easily move on and yet

youth how to build beautiful and sacred things

is filled with mystery we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t understand and dear one, have faith that the earth is still a safe place and

By the light in the trees

my arms are always there to catch you

A community of beautiful people with tattoos and piercings and bikes with no brakes and strumming

By the light in the trees

guitars and songs they write and skateboards they

A mother holds dearly a child to her chest and wraps

ride and cans of paint and journals of notes and

her arms around it with layers of colorful scarves and

sketches of ideas and torn jeans and smiles and hearts

knitted shawls and ancient love and holds forth to say

who do not believe in a system that has a picture of

that even in this cold air your life will be warm and

Sara Palin posing for a nation that confuses religion

bountiful and I will hold you and nurture you and

and state with dogma and politicsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;but still feels the

your children and your childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s children

glimmer of faith and connection to that mysterious light shining into their live to be quietly, privately dreamed about in the poetry they live

By the light in the trees We can see divine intervention while we harvest honey By the light in the trees Our children will take their children to the church they build and listen to their prayers at bedtime with stories of moonlight in the window By the light in the trees We feel the guiding spirit of a daughter who is no longer on the temporal plane, Shine down on a moonbeam, Sets us down to rest And quiets our mind With a whisper of one small sacred truth In the space between time The mystery of light through the branches is real

If this is a meditation… the phrases, How well do

When I think of light in the trees my mind

you remember? and Waters Rising produce an ache in

immediately pictures the olive orchard where we held

my chest with their huge loss and sorrow attached.

our memorial for Phoebe. For me the olive orchard is

When I arrive at the phrase Light in the Trees, my

the perfect photograph of light in the trees. The

breath relaxes, my heart pauses, the knot in my

process of building a church; of expressing our faith

stomach unwinds and for a moment I feel a glimmer

and reverence; of showing a devotion to a universe

of hope. As a meditation, I didn’t know why. It just

that is huge with mystery: How phoebe’s girls club

happened like that. I find solace in that. Writing these

stayed up late into the night stringing photographs,

entries is a journey for sure. There are no clichés in

tying garlands, even in the sadness laughing and

grief this deep, but cliché as it sounds this is a journey

joyfully cutting and collecting; how family and friends

of discovery. Before I can write any of this I have to

arrived in the warm morning and built alters, fire pits,

discover what it means. It is not only discovering the

pews, tables for food and drink, how the boys played

meaning of By the Light in the trees, or Surrender with a

guitar and jammed on the benches. I remember the

Sigh, but discovering how to access a path to a deeper

day of the ceremony. It had been warm for a month.

understanding of those things. Phoebe could have

David Best had told us the orchard is always warm

randomly chosen these titles for her art work, I could

this time of year, but that afternoon a cold and a wind

have randomly had them inked into my arm-- there

had settled on the hill like something brought from a

are always easy logical explanations for why things

far away land-- The same wind that blew out across

might be…. A journey is about seeing things for the

the Marin headlands a week earlier. My grief and

first time. I am learning the difference of the writer

exhaustion not of a world that was meant to be

who writes what he sees and the writer who writes

inhabited by us mortals. I walked through the

what he knows.

driftwood arch, under the olive canopy with the light casting through the branches and witness this church

A funny thing happened, for all the notes I had It is a father’s duty to stand in front of his

scribbled, for all the passages I tried to remember, the

family and closest friends and to speak of what has

poetry I had collected, the stories I jotted down—this

happened. My closest friend Steve who stood beside

little Phoebe story I had forgotten until that moment

me had given me a metal cup to strike. Pause. Strike.

emerged:

Sound ringing out into the orchard-- I see my family,

It was a rainy dark morning traveling along

Phoebe’s family, Phoebe’s closest friends and allies

highway 580 to visit my parents. We left before sunrise

waiting, huddling together with blankets, rugs,

and there were howling winds and torrents of rain. The

sleeping bags, anything to keep our bones from

road suddenly became flooded. I loose control of the van

rattling in a cold that is hard to describe. The sound

and we go spinning down the highway, around and around

descended and with a whisper vanished. I saw the

and around, I see my world flash before my eyes, my babies

light in the trees. Perhaps in that moment I

asleep in the back, until finally careening into the overpass

understood it perfectly, perhaps I put on an awkward

wall and stopping sideways in the middle of the freeway,

pair of my dad’s shiny minister shoes, but the first

our lights shining into a dark void with blind cars and their

words I spoke were: “God is in these trees!” In the

glaring lights coming down upon us in the dark rain.

vacuum of that moment I felt my voice leave my

We’re invisible. Cars swerving. Our crumpled van

mouth and fall at my feet-- Eyes staring at me,

dodging. We manage to limp off the freeway. Disoriented,

waiting, wanting, to cold to move. A voice leaned

scared and confused I access the damage in the gas station

over and whispered if you want to heal in this

fluorescent light. I ask my four year old daughter. What do

moment you have to have your words become real.

we do? Should we go on? Phoebe looks me straight in the

Tell a story. Speak from your heart.

eye. “You should go on Dad. We need to go on.” And in the first morning light we drove south.

I saw people shift in their chairs, I saw a

We build that church in the olive orchard by

moment of relief, the cold lifted a few degrees and

the light of the trees. We build that church under the

words started flowing, I remember talking to

graffiti of the Phoenix Theatre. At the Phoenix I’m on

phoebe’s friends who were sitting on a blanket in the

stage singing Forever Young and there must be 800

front, I remember people smiling at me, nodding

people listening to these words. I see all these

their heads to say-- it’s okay we’re listening, we’re

wonderful, loving, giving, caring, compassionate

hearing you. I remember the light in the trees that

people cryining and singing with me. I see all my

contained this moment. I don’t remember what else I

friends, all phoebe’s friends, my family and their

said but I clearly remember the difference between

families and out of this amazing community I can

those words falling from my mouth and words

only see a small handful that actually go to church,

flowing from my heart.

actually have a faith that allows them to sit in a pew

It was an insincere voice that uttered the three

on a Sunday and have that moment with their God.

letter word and it made the cold even worse. I

The rest of us-- where do we go when we need deep

understood that something was in those trees, but I

faith and solace? Loosing a daughter, a sister, a close

do not have a word to describe it. The way I have

friend, an inspiration-- where do we go? You show

raised my family, the way I raised my daughters and

up, you bring food, your guitar, your poetry, your

sons is to see that word hidden in the beauty in the

hug, your tears, your smile, your love, your eyes,

light of the trees. Phoebe is a gift that now shines

your help, your offering, your ability to build and to

that light so much brighter. As a family our faith is to

see and to create. You honor a spirit and you touch a

walk in the mystery by the light of the trees; look for

mystery. We meditate, We sit, We walk, We play

blue glass in sea shore.

music, We write, We build alters....

I just wrote that paragraph and while getting

The other night we’re sitting around the

ready to decorate the Christmas tree. (More light in

Christmas tree, I don’t remember what we are

the trees). Jordan found this book I made with

talking about, but Max declares I don’t believe in God.

Phoebe when she was seven. It’s about discovering

I get a jolt and feel a moment of yes you do take that

the mystery in the forest on some hikes we used to

back…. But say calmly as not to sound parental and

take. (Thank you for the reminder Phoebe). I think

get the kids defensive. “You do or you don’t, but you

I'll post it at the end of this.

certainly believe in the mystery you feel when you take your long hikes in the hills, play music with your bandmates, you believe in a mystery that you share

We just came back from our Christmas in Elk.

at sunset on the hill with your friends all standing

Drew and Jack, Henry, Jordan and Max and Pam and

quiet looking out towards the ocean…. Maybe you

me. A rainy afternoon spent at glass beach collecting

should say something like I don’t believe in the word

artifacts. The kids now twenty, eighteen and

God for me it’s a bigger mystery that can’t be

seventeen still call me from long distances exclaiming:

explained by one word.” Surprisingly he doesn’t

Dad/Dave, blue glass!!! Still the little kids remembering

argue and just nods his head and says yeah maybe.

the stories we told about it. I can’t tell you how that makes me feel. “We can put it on the alter for Phoebe.”

Collecting gifts from tide pools.

When I was young my father was a Methodist

For me the best memory of church was the

minister who built a church and grew a congregation

building of a church. The memory of the day I

from a small handful to two thousand. I was a young

walked in after seeing the stain glass installed marks

boy in this worldâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;being told to say quiet as dad

by first breath taking moment of witnessing how

wrote his sermons, dragged to Sunday boring school,

artifact is so much larger than life. The sound of an

fidgeting for hours in boring church, potluck boring

organ the size of a wall the first memory of music the

dinners, old ladies with blue boring hair and men with

filled your body more than your ears. I easily

shiny boring shoes, but all this dreary church life

remember dad writing sermons around Beatles songs,

dissolved in an instant when I discovered the secret

borrowing my Sgt Peppers album to do a sermon

entrance to the off limits construction zone of the new

around-- Day in the Life. I remember that people

church he was building. I found a labyrinth of secret

laughed in his sermons. I remember standing in line

passages, I watched dirt get excavated and change to

while people filed past us and my mom whispering

steel and wood, steel and wood change to slabs of

the names of people dad couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember. I

concrete, slabs of concrete grow to gargantuan

remember my dad sitting on the pot, bellowing out

proportions. I would sneak off, hide from the Sunday

his sermon from typed pages laid out on the

throng and go through the locked door, past the off

bathroom floor. I remember the church but not the

limits signs and then I played in the mud, I played in

religion.

the dark, I played in the lost areas of the building and created elaborate stories and games, showed my friends the markings left by ancient civilizations and the patterns laid down by futuristic beings in the forbidden passages of the Garden Grove catacombs

Suddenly I see this all about building churches

The Yurt on the hill and the hut on the plateau,

for our family and community. Not big ornate

Spirit Rock, All our driftwood houses, Rock labyrinths

structures with a steeple and open the doors and see

on hill tops, hand made dams and stacked rocks in

all the people, but of things of sticks and stones and

rivers, amazing camp sites at 10,000 feet, playing

blue glass and abalone shells and flowers and

music in front of a fire, Jack building at burning man,

garlands, and trees and mountain tops and cliffs

drew making a gallery for a community or artists,

overlooking the sea and beaches and fires and secrete

Pam creating books of family heritage…. This list is

alters in nooks and crannies.

endless. Even 4 friends going to Spider Murphy’s and

So for me it’s the building part not the church part: My dad’s concrete church and also the adobe chapel in Mexico still a huge memory as a kid hiding

getting a tattoo of Phoebe’s artwork is building a church.

If I mention to the kids right now asleep in

in the goat caves and stacking adobe blocks and

their beds-- lets go to the beach and build a house out

lighting a candle at night. Getting married in the

of driftwood and make a fire they will drop

merry go round with Drew and then on the beach

everything to go. And when we do we always see

with Pam with me and the boys collecting driftwood

amazing things along the way. There are always

in the morning and making a circle and the Jordan

stories to tell, photos to take, memories to hold.

and Phoebe coming down later with flowers to make a path and hang them from a gate we made

There is always-- the light in the trees.