They walked among us—listening deeply to the ruffling of birch
leaves, the ting
of aspen leaves. They smiled at the spruce, tapped the trunk of
the largest—the one that would stand as sentinel at the top of
the driveway. Before they brought chain saws and bobcat, they
invited friends. To come. To listen. To dedicate this place in
love. They brought gifts—tokens of the earth from other loved
places. They brought stories and laughter. Dogs and cats. They
consecrated this
space in their own way, understanding that the sacred
already breathed here.
When they began to build, they did this with respect. They took
down only
enough trees to live amongst us. They saved our severed trunks.
Split them into logs and stacked them for winter.
We welcomed them. We danced in the wind, bending as if we were
60-foot palms
swaying along a sundrenched coast. We sang until our leaves
fell, then rustled hellos as they walked from cabin to outhouse
to campfire. We heated them in woodstove and fire pit—lis-
tening to their stories and the stories of friends who gathered
around the fire.
When they were ready to build a studio on the second ridge they
had to take more
trees. Clear a larger space—creating required more floor space
than living. This time a concrete base—and the need to hire
help to stand the larger walls. We didn’t mind—they still re-
spected us, would save our trunks for heat and be grateful. But
something had shifted in their hearts.
We wanted to lift them up—high into our boughs—to let them see
what they had
built—together. How beautiful, how holy this ground. But they
were busy. They focused on the workspace, lost the heart space.
When one left for a winter in Homer, we stood in silence and held
the space. We
waited for her. She returned to say goodbye. She left an image
of herself under willows outside her studio. She left the ashes
of beloved beings near the campfire. She left her heart’s beat,
the sigh of her breath. We hold her. We wish her peace and the
grace of knowing we remain.