Today, answering a Facebook post advertising a free spoon carving workshop, 5 delightful people came along and carved a spoon each:
Musician/teacher Language teacher
Designer Graphic designer
We talked a little about creativity being intrinsic to human nature.
We agreed that an object is more precious to us if we have made it ourselves.
I liked how Designer and Language Teacher followed their creative vision, even though I encouraged people to keep it simple.
When teaching spoon carving I am often impressed with the determination people show.
5 hours of hard work and learning went into these spoons.
Walking in the woods that day I had a deepening of awareness.
I am conscious that often when I am in the woods my eyes are on swivels scanning and probing the trees.
I am looking for something that I can own: an interestingly shaped bow or branch; a birch burl; a hazle pole deformed into a spiral by a climbing clematis.
Looking at the forest as a resource I can plunder to add to my wealth.
Looking also to Name everything - betula, beech, corylus avellan, amanita muscaria...
By naming things we box them up and package them neatly so our minds can own them.
This extractivist approach belittles the world and diminishes our experience.
So on this walk I put aside my grasping mind and settled down into buddha mind - present and unattached.
I climbed a tree, a very tall plantation pine that was spared the chainsaw because it was too difficult to reach i guess.
When I climb a Very Tall Tree I am acutely aware that my well-being is in its hands, in its branches.
One becomes aware of entanglement when in a Very Tall Tree.
Of course we are all entangled with everything all the time - but that's easy to forget when we are in an extractavist mindset.
Climbing the tree I am talking to it, outloud I say "hello tree".
In my mind I reassure the tree that my intentions are good, and that I will only remove dead branches and twigs that impede my progress.
I tell the tree I am grateful for its safe embrace as I climb higher.
I acknowledge the tree as an agent of experience.
The tree has experienced the passing of time and has measured the world around it.
The tree is helping me be fully present in the moment and in the landscape.
Half way up the tree I pause.
A whooshing sound moves down the valley - the tree gives and sways and dances with the wind.
"OK" I say. "I won't go any higher."
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