hush, can you hear Her? harshly whispering warning, through piñon’s needles
There is a place in the arroyo hondo where wise piñons tower overhead and junipers rest underfoot. It is the same place where my twisted Friend, dancing even in death, piñon rests amid other fallen Ones. Their presence makes wind’s warning clear as it flows through the needles of the towering piñons. Time is running out.
Resting my hand on my now silent Friend, I feel swept up in the untamable seething anger breathing through the needles of these trees, and I have a vision of Woman Wisdom standing atop the hill’s crest unleashing Her cries.
Doesn’t Wisdom cry out and Understanding shout? Atop the heights along the path, at the crossroads, she takes her stand. By the gate before the city, at the entrances, she shouts. Proverbs 8:1-3.
Like a fierce mother, Her whispers grow to wails, and She bellows and bawls at the destruction of Her beloveds. Clinging to them, She implores us to heed the warning we can no longer afford to ignore. Time is running out.
Sacred piñons are disappearing at alarming rates. By 2050, New Mexico will lose the majority of its forests. I have said this before in a previous post, but it is worth repeating. There is something about the needless loss of trees that sets my heart ablaze with anger and deep grief. Perhaps it is because trees, with their deep awareness of cyclical time and the wisdom they harbor within, absolutely “drown us in meaning” to quote Richard Powers in The Overstory.
That’s the trouble with people, their root problem. Life runs alongside them, unseen. Right here, right next. Creating the soil. Cycling water. Trading in nutrients. Making weather. Building atmosphere. Feeding and curing and sheltering more kinds of creatures than people know how to count.
Richard Powers, The Overstory
Losing these meaning-full Beings will have catastrophic consequences the wind warns. Time is running out.
I hear these whispers turned wails through piñon’s needles and wonder if we will ever heed Wisdom’s wailing warning. Time is running out.
A Confession
Untamable Mother
Whose wailing can be heard on the wind
i come to You cowering and ashamed
for what i have done
for i failed to see You
indwelling in all creation
i thought myself separate
from all that You love
when really i was made
from the dust of the earth
enlivened with Your breath
