In the Dirt I Write . . .



Surrender tree

The Surrender Tree

opens me to what I cannot see . . .

As I write in the dirt that

supports its roots:

names

symbols

words

I release my logic,

my will,

my need to know,

and trust that my small act

of faith,

of letting go,

will create beauty and life

more wild than my imagination can dream.

Looking around,

I see that I am alone.

My ritual is guaranteed.

Today is another day

to speak my surrender

into the air,

while the tree bears silent witness

and keeps my secrets

to itself.

Walking away,

I look back at the tree,

then the ground.

I envision the words, like offerings,

stirring in the dirt,

under the small stones and branches

I’ve laid upon them,

actively in dialogue with

Source

for me.

I cannot communicate the depth

of what my surrender means,

because even I do not understand it.

But the words I’ve spoken out loud

and set into the dirt

by the base of the tree

make me

FREE. 

© 2011 by Jenna Love

This poem came from a ritual I created at a time in my life where nothing I could "do" was changing anything in the physical world around me. My deep need to make things and situations turn the way I wanted, in the time I wanted, only left me frustrated, disappointed, and even a bit faithless in my spiritual journey. I'm naturally drawn to trees because to me they represent groundedness. Their root systems are complicated, entwined, far-reaching, and adaptable. The trunk and branches grow toward the light and seek higher awareness.

Notice in the picture how this beech tree's bark has been carved into by people who have left an initial or a word, a marker of an emotion, a record in history. Well, I wanted my history to be more private, subtle, just between me and God. I wanted to place my words and symbols in the ground right at the base of the tree, as if they would somehow penetrate the soil and become buried, go underground and emerge again in a new, enlightened form. I was seeking for my grief and frustration and hopes to die and be transformed.

Many times a week I performed this ritual. I also placed special rocks I collected, favosite coral fossils to be exact, on the dirt. I wanted to take the fossils home because the coral had become crystalized and they were really beautiful and rare. But leaving them at the tree was like another offering, to go along with my words and symbols in the dirt, to give away the things I needed to surrender: thought patterns, expectations, desires, fears.

One day, though, I brought a stone with me to the tree, which I had recently bought, called chiastolite. It is a stone noted for its distinctive cross-shaped, black graphite inclusions against a brownish background. Symbolically, I connect with the cross symbol for Christian representations, and carrying it with me was a positive reminder of discovering my life mission, realizing that the path to fulfilling it would not be easy. It would require a sacrifice. But in the sacrifice there is the promise of a kind of death that only leads to transformation and the promise of something better. To me, Jesus and the cross is relevant to me on more than just the level of how He suffered for us. It is also a prophetic announcement to all of mankind that our life is a journey that will require a time of coming to terms with our mission, a wrestling with God and ourself (and even bargaining) to possibly have some other option than what we know is our path. Then there's a coming to terms with whatever lies ahead, not knowing for sure where the journey will lead but having a surrendered faith that gets you on your knees and in the dirt of your life for a while, wondering if you heard the calling correctly because it sure doesn't feel comfortable. Next comes some real pain. The death of the old self, the old thought patterns and expectations and beliefs of how you thought your life would be. All gone. Done. In the dirt ready for transformation.

Then some time has to pass. That time is different for everyone. For me, usually things do not transform overnight, but require months and years to bring certain situations full-circle. God is really not concerned with how long we spend in a death/transformation cycle; He's concerned with the outcome, the change it produces on the other side.

When transformation and restoration occur, there is a great respect for the process that was required to enter this new territory of change and rebirth.

But back to the chiastolite stone I carried with me one day to the tree . . . I really didn't want to leave it there, buried in the dirt, but knew symbolically I needed to. I scooted some dirt around and then suddenly it fell deep into a hole an animal had dug, so deep that I panicked that it was out of my reach. I tried to retrieve it, but it was long gone. Just like everything in my head (my worries, my fears, my longings and expectations) that needed to slip away, the rock with the cross on it went first; it led the way for my personal surrender.

I felt a little shocked that the chiastolite was gone so suddenly and was so out of sight and reach. But it confirmed my need to stop obsessing about what I need to leave behind, to just do it once and carry on. Trust that doing it once with certain faith is better than doing it daily with no faith. So, I let go.

About two months later I was at the tree, snuffeling about the dirt, and as I moved some leaves I saw the chiastolite right there on the surface of the dirt. Just right there in plain sight! Not underground in the pit of darkness. Simply there for me to pick up without having to search for it. It was odd, really, to have so much time and weathering occur over the two months---and the area is on an incline. I never expected to see that rock again. I felt it had been given back to me. It was okay to take it home. Because I didn't look for it and dig it up and chase after it, it rose to the surface in its own time. Right then, I realized the clarity I sought in my life would probably follow this same pattern.

For the first time in a long while, I felt that my acts of surrender at that tree were heard all along. That not one grief cry, faithless moment, plead, petition, or longing had gone out to oblivion. Though nothing had, in fact, turned a corner in my life or had really changed or come full-circle yet, I knew that I was heard and that I was told to keep enduring. The chiastolite cross stone was given back to me as bread for the journey, you could say. An offering to ME this time. A reminder that endurance builds the soul's stamina for the next stage of the journey.

Endurance is a teacher.

Patience and higher understanding are its gifts.

As long as we resist the path we do not want to traverse,

we cannot embrace endurance

as it is meant to work in us

and change us.

May you speak your surrender like a mantra today, then let it go.

May you write words and symbols in the dirt as Jesus did, then let them go.

May you believe in the grace of endurance and the grace of restoration.

Blueberry Bliss

My children and I went blueberry picking at a church in Franklin, Tennessee, last summer, and I found an unexpected surprise in the midst of a chaotic, messy out-building (in which fruit pickers leave money in a bucket to donate to the church in trade for the berries) that had a place of respite and meditation for anyone who wandered in . . . if they looked past the clutter and trash (yes, trash), and stacks of boxes. The area consisted simply of a shelf, the Apostle's Creed printed out on a piece of paper, a candle, matches, and prayers typed out to offer up to God, with a few pictures of Jesus hanging in small frames behind the shelf to offer focus to anyone who needed to have a visual of hope and promise. I, particularly, don't like looking at portrayals of Jesus, as I know they are all incorrect, so I rely on a bodily presence without features and an overall spiritual essence of who He is. Anyway, I wondered if I should use this meditation station, because I felt really drawn to it, and my kids were outside, happy just to stay and roam around the many-acred, blueberry-filled property. And let's face it, who in their right mind would want to leave the rolling acres of woods, sanctuary of the church property, and freedom to roam, even after we had picked more berries than we could ever hope to eat.

As I pondered if I should have a moment at the meditation station, I wondered if I was actually allowed to. Isn't that silly? But when a place of safety and rest is provided to us, at no cost and with no strings attached, we often feel undeserving at first, like we should hurry through the process and take "just a little", because it "really wasn't meant for us in the first place". I could have reasoned that the meditation corner was really for church members, and that I had come into a sacred place, unofficially, and uninvited . . . my only reason for being there was to pay for the berries and then exit the building. Or another way to put it would be that I had to earn or pay the price for even being allowed in the building. But I chose to allow myself the opportunity to have the experience I felt I needed. I lit the candle and became internally quiet. Then, staring at the candle, prayers flowed through my thoughts and the Apostle's Creed was quietly spoken. I felt that I was where I rightfully needed to be. Every once in a while I couldn't help but look around the large room, which encompassed a living area and kitchen, and was a little put off by the untidiness. I thought that if the church is going to offer a place of respite, then couldn't they at least work on the whole surroundings to enhance the beauty of the meditative/prayerful experience? But then I reminded myself that there is always beauty and calm to be found in the midst of chaos; there is always a place of safety in the disordered, messy, and untidy path we walk. Not sure that was the church's intention to show people, but it was what I needed to hear that afternoon nonetheless. Finally (and reluctantly, because I didn't want to leave), I blew out the candle, stacked the papers containing the Apostle's Creed and prayers, and threw away my match in the trash can to my left . . . only to see about ten or so burned out matches lying in the bottom of the trash from others before me who had come in to have their own experience of prayer and meditation. I smiled, because I had actually felt kinda alone and isolated during my experience, caught up in my thoughts and worries, and then I realized that we are all doing the same thing--bringing our attention to God, calming our souls through the words we offer Him, and finally, surrendering our chaos to Him as we end our meditative "moment" and carry on with our day. I ended up feeling not only united to God at that moment, but united to people in general--the people who seek Him--and especially those ten people who came before me with their prayers and left their burned-out match as reminder that I am not alone in my journey.

I walked past the bucket of donated berry money on my way out, noticing from the amount in it that quite a few people must have come inside the building on this day. I wondered if they had also seen the meditation spot toward the back corner, or had they felt single-minded, like they only had permission to enter, leave their offering, and exit promptly. I hoped more would linger and notice what I found, and leave not thinking of what money they had to give up, but what they could gladly leave behind (all that is surrendered in prayer) and gain (peace and welcoming).

Ice Crisis

It's February . . . still. January felt long as well, with cold, icy, dark days that felt longer than their allotted twenty-four hours. But February is the final month that ends the bleak winter days (at least in the area I live), so the anticipation of March and spring just weeks away makes me want to move quickly through February. Sometimes I think it would be nice if humans could just collectively hibernate right about now. Just shut down, regain our strength, and avoid the feelings of bleakness that this season can bring. Then we could wake up as the warmth settles around us and the natural world comes to life with buds and flowers, inviting us once again to the world of renewal and hope and life. But the more I think about it, if humans could hibernate, we would miss out on many experiences that the "winter" months could teach us, if you look at the winter months symbolically . . . as times of tribulation. Read the following quote from author Caroline Myss in her book Invisible Acts of Power:

"Many of the crisis in our lives are divinely scheduled to get us to head in another direction. No one gets off a comfortable couch. We need stress, often an enormous amount of it, to muster up the willpower finally to try something new with our lives. As . . . Scott Peck writes, '. . . our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.' "

Everyone gets challenged by a crisis. But what usually happens with me is that I become paralyzed, useless, and unable to find my center. I generally don't take any action, even though my thoughts are spinning. A good word to describe my reaction during these times would be frozen . . . in a metaphorical winter ice crisis. When ice and snow come upon a landscape, it really cements things in place for a time. Small twigs are not likely to blow away until the ice releases its hold; rocks are almost impossible to dislodge from a frozen forest floor; and, on a lighter note, I've even had my daughter's jump rope become frozen under the ice, only to be rescued when the warm sun shines on it days later. When it snows here in Tennessee, life basically shuts down because no one is prepared to move fluidly along the roads, since our driving skills in icy conditions are lacking and the city rarely salts the roads thoroughly in preparation. So, I've had my fair share of days through the years in Tennessee of simply being stuck in one place for a few days because of the snow and ice. But recently, I've begun to take a new perspective on the benefits of the various internal "ice crises" I've found myself frozen in.

For example, if I reword being "stuck" and "frozen" during a difficult time with being "still" and "receptive", then my attitude can change and the end result moves to a positive. Being still and receptive while moving through a difficulty also echoes of silence and meditation, waiting on God to reveal the next step, discernment, and rehabilitating the self through patience and gentleness.
I searched the Bible for references to snow, and I did not find anything negative associated with that word. In fact, the purity and renewal of snow was reiterated again and again. And it's true. Snow and ice can represent a new start, acting like a blanket, covering over the old decay of the past season. When it thaws, the water is set free, affirming life by allowing new growth to take root and established trees and plants to keep thriving. Can you see the need for stillness and patience as we learn to wait on God to move us through the difficulties? Help will come to us, but shutting down and becoming paralyzed by fear shuts down our ability to perceive God around us. He is always there, but we have to look and listen through our STILLNESS without letting our feelings of being frozen and stuck get the better of us. The crisis we are going through will "thaw", and the new growth that takes place when the Living Water runs through us only makes our souls more beautiful.

Note: The above picture is a brachiopod fossil half, filled with tiny crystals, sitting in the snow.

Ancient Messages

Have you ever heard of a brachiopod? Well, I hadn't until this past fall. I came across an unusual shell fossil deep in the woods one day and asked a fellow fossil-lover what it was. He smiled and told me a few things about brachiopods and that the particular one I had shown him was between 300 and 500 million years old, dating from the geological era of the Cambrian period to possibly the Permian period. Brachiopods (two-valved marine creatures) lived millions of years ago in shallow seas. One side of the shell has a depression in the middle, and the other side has a raised ridge down the center, making brachiopods only symmetrical if you cut them down the front in the middle, but not if you take apart each side of the shell. I love these fossils. More important, I love that I can hold in my hand something so ancient that once was so full of life. This particular brachiopod was connected to our ancient earth before humans roamed the planet. Can you imagine just how magnificent these earlier days of earth must have been?
After I found my first brachiopod, I started seeing more deep in the woods--I only noticed them where I expected to find them. But one day I happened to look down at the edge of a gravel road and saw a whole brachiopod fossil among the chopped rock. I realized that I never would have expected to find one in such an "unnatural" environment. After all, gravel doesn't seem like anything natural or ancient. But it is . . . it comes from the broken-down, millions-of-years-old rocks. Even though we use it for our roads and such, its source is the same as any rock. And all rocks are VERY old.

This got me to thinking . . . again. Sometimes I gloss over things that are of value. I only expect to see valuable things in certain places, so I've trained my eye to NOT see the valuable things of life in the unexpected places. By living in this narrowly focused way, I miss out on so much beauty and joy and growth. I love the John O'Donohue quote: "Many of us have made our world so familiar that we do not see it anymore." Everything deserves a second glance, a gaze even. The gaze allows our hearts to open a little more and let something that is often times unnoticed get a second chance to shine, to share its truth. The gaze slows us down and allows us to connect to our world in a more intimate and connected way. If you look into someone's eye's long enough, for example, you can't help but feel connected to them in a way that makes words virtually powerless. Eyes connect . . . the gaze connects. It activates the heart and soul. If we really take the time to stop and look at something or someone, we will hear a message or learn something that is valuable to our life. God will use that moment of connection to speak. That small moment of the second look, the extended gaze, will hold much power and importance. Try it. I know you'll be amazed at what you really see and how your soul is touched.

Finding beautiful, ancient fossils in unexpected places also reminds me to never limit God. Don't expect to only find Him in the usual places: church, funeral homes, and such. God is everywhere. He is in the leaves that fall to the ground in autumn. He is in the nurse who comforts a patient with cancer. He is in the handicapped person who is longing for human contact. He is in the marriage that has become unraveled but is finally coming back together with humbling honesty and forgiveness. He is in the coffee shops of the cities among friends, who get together for a moment of confession. He is in our greatest achievements and our most disappointing failures. Gaze into the present moment and see where you find Him in any given situation. His presence will not disappoint. It's only we who disappoint ourselves by not letting the holy and divine reach into every moment.

Silence Speaks

"There is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought . . . all the things that truly matter--beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace--arise from beyond the mind."

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

Silence . . . Stillness . . . I've often wondered how productivity can come of being silent or being still. My mind and body regularly move at a challenging speed, leaving me exhausted yet proud at all that gets accomplished in a day. Often I get involved in an activity just so I don't have to sit still and be with myself, because I don't want to encounter the issues I need to deal with on a personal or spiritual level. Off I'll go, at lightening speed, to busy myself, when I really need to slow down my body, stop the internal chatter, and simply be. But it is hard. Silence, stillness, and "being" without "doing" are not natural to me. But it is precisely in these moments that God is able to enter in a special way, as if by invitation. Creating moments where His Spirit can enter and fill me with insight and guidance is so worth the payoff of slowing down. Here is one such memorable moment where I allowed the silence to speak and the stillness to move in my spirit . . .

If there is anything my close friends know about me, it's that I do not sleep in the daytime . . . at all. I understand that naps are beneficial to our bodies, but it's part of that not-slowing-down thing I do so well. I feel that I am being idle if I nap, even if I could use the rest. Since I trail run and walk often, I usually have my silent moments in the woods . . . but they're not still moments. And at this particular time in my life, I was in desperate need of a still moment. Then one day out of nowhere, I found myself searching for the couch . . . during the day. Much to my shame, I went for it. I just did it. I fell asleep on the couch. And from what I remember, it felt good. But the waking-up moment was even better. Here's why: When we are not yet awake, but not quite asleep, our bodies are in an alpha state, which is very relaxing. Meditation can be done in this alpha state, and it often produces some incredible healing in the body. So as I was in this alpha state, I was aware of a voice speaking directly in my ear (whispering, actually). I remember having a "thought" dialogue with this voice, so my actual voice didn't respond. I can't remember the words spoken to me, but the tone was one of peace and love. After the dialogue was complete, the word breathe kept sounding in my ear, which was an important word for me to hear (I'll explain later). I even heard the voice as I opened my eyes, thinking that someone was in the room. But the room was empty.

I wondered if I had just had a dream, but right away I knew better. It is my belief that I created a "space", an opening, for the Spirit to speak to me. By creating silence and stillness, the Spirit was able to speak with me at a soul level (not a mind level, because we are not our minds, we are our souls). And the word that was given to me as a token of that Spirit-speak was breathe. This word is important to me because I am a notoriously shallow breather (caused by anxiety). So to hear a reminder to breathe was such a help. From that moment on, I stop many times a day and really focus on my breathing. May seem silly to you, but it is a necessity to me if I don't want to get lightheaded or pass out, which has happened to me.

In order for me to hear the soul message, I had to be "out of my mind" (removing internal chatter) and still. I aim to be still and silent at least once a day now. Just a few moments of silence and stillness can open my soul's door to experience what God has to say through His Spirit. I don't have to take a nap for this connection with God to happen; that experience was just His way of saying it's OK to slow down . . . and rest. Sitting on my wonderful back porch can open the door. Meditating can open the door. Being in the woods and stopping to take in a silent moment can open the door. Sitting in my parked car can open the door. Sitting at my dining room table can open the door. The possibilities are endless. And so is His pursuit of us . . . endless.