Joy

[JustGeorge]

My personal journey with this is ongoing - what I generally notice is that most nature spirits on the whole are generally welcoming to a two-leg paying attention to them as a person. Or at least that is the vibe I get. In rare cases I don't - I had this some with the ash trees at first, probably because they are all dying. It is sad, and a big part of what inspired me to celebrate the joy of trees this year. All the big trees out front in my home were ash. They are gone now. I spent time getting to know them one-on-one a bit before they died and had a legit mourning experience with them. They reminded me of how the things that bring us the most beauty and joy are often the simple things we take for granted... then deeply miss once absent.

I'm sure my neighbors thought I was weird, leaving offerings of incense on their cut stumps in memorial though... haha.

The city cut a strip of trees out from a flood dike behind our old house. Maybe a hundredish trees were lost, though no one would have thought there were so many in such a small space. There were so many, so many kinds. Some quite old. But, the city said it violated this or that...

I mourned. Cried. Most didn't understand. One person(thought they were a friend) told me to get over it, its just trees. A group of Buddhist guys I knew were the only who allowed me to air my difficulties with the situation, and listened to my upset with any caring or understanding.

Trees have such a presence; sometimes we take their spirits for granted.

 

[JDMS]

My personal journey with this is ongoing - what I generally notice is that most nature spirits on the whole are generally welcoming to a two-leg paying attention to them as a person. Or at least that is the vibe I get. In rare cases I don't - I had this some with the ash trees at first, probably because they are all dying. It is sad, and a big part of what inspired me to celebrate the joy of trees this year. All the big trees out front in my home were ash. They are gone now. I spent time getting to know them one-on-one a bit before they died and had a legit mourning experience with them. They reminded me of how the things that bring us the most beauty and joy are often the simple things we take for granted... then deeply miss once absent.

I'm sure my neighbors thought I was weird, leaving offerings of incense on their cut stumps in memorial though... haha.

My grandmother and I had a similar experience last year when we had to remove her 50 year old cherry tree that she had planted when she moved into her home. The tree became diseased and was at risk of falling on her or her neighbors' home. It was cut down and I had to haul away the large pieces of its trunk and branches, with a few tears in my eyes. It was definitely a valued individual by both my grandmother and I, and every other squirrel, bird, bug, bacteria, etc. that called it home. It was terrible watching it degrade for a long time though... so maybe it was better that it finally went.

 

[Secret Chief]

Here is the rest of the cat zoo.

View attachment 69224 View attachment 69225 View attachment 69226

Are they available for stealing?

 

[Vinayaka]

My personal journey with this is ongoing - what I generally notice is that most nature spirits on the whole are generally welcoming to a two-leg paying attention to them as a person. Or at least that is the vibe I get. In rare cases I don't - I had this some with the ash trees at first, probably because they are all dying. It is sad, and a big part of what inspired me to celebrate the joy of trees this year. All the big trees out front in my home were ash. They are gone now. I spent time getting to know them one-on-one a bit before they died and had a legit mourning experience with them. They reminded me of how the things that bring us the most beauty and joy are often the simple things we take for granted... then deeply miss once absent.

I'm sure my neighbors thought I was weird, leaving offerings of incense on their cut stumps in memorial though... haha.

I'll tell you the story of one tree I know. When our temple was under construction, we had to replace an old power box. The old one is basically a hollow concrete cube, open on the bottom, and having another smaller 1 foot by 1 foot hole on the top. An old friend insisted we put it on the lawn, as a potential landscaping sort of centerpiece. A couple of years later, I noticed a tree had been born (aspen, a runner) in the darkness, surrounded by concrete, surviving on food from the mothers and the bit of sunlight coming through the top hole. About 8 years or so later, and it grows through the hole, and then bursts skyward. Now he/she is a very ordinary looking aspen except for the fact it's trunk is totally surrounded by a cube of concrete. He/she is a story of perseverance, a loner outside the group.