Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

~David Wagoner

Stand still. In these days when not only standing still but sometimes also staying put is the food that nourishes us, we are all finding ways to make sense of where we are, who we are. While the impetus is to jump ahead to ‘who we might become’, the reality is that we are Here. Here. This place that holds our lives, perhaps not the lives we planned or imagined, but nonetheless our lives. While we are in this place called pandemic, each of us has been finding ways to cope with our individual life situation while we recognize the need to stand still, stay put for the greater good of our beloved community…family, friends, co-workers, strangers, those with whom we share much and those with whom we share very little. This place called ‘Here’ has taken on a larger picture than any of us would have admitted a mere two months ago.

I do not know the circumstances under which poet David Wagoner wrote this poem titled “Lost”. But I do know his words have come into my mind over and over again as I engage in what has been the calming, saving grace for me of walking. Walking along streets lined with trees emerging from their winter slumber. Walking on paths paved for easy going as bikes zoom by declaring freedom. Walking in the woods and allowing the wisdom of trees to bathe me in the oxygen they so beneficently offer us all. 

Trees have always held a special place in my life. I am drawn to them and sense their strength and their energy. I believe that some people are drawn to water or mountains or cornfields in similar ways knowing that, when the human allows the mind to stop its fluttering and invites the gift of pure Presence to arrive, we can drink from the well of deep wisdom. Trees do that for me. 

A few weeks ago, I walked through a grove of trees in Carpenter Nature Center. As I moved my feet along paths recently covered with a springtime snow, littered with last year’s leaves and pine needles, all created a crunching noise under my hiking boots. The songs of birds, unseen to me, provided the soundtrack for my life story that day. The air had that mix of winter and spring all rolled into one, wore a freshness that can only be described as hope. At one point I looked up and simply stood still…in the place called Here…and for that moment the sense of being ‘lost’ in this pandemic whirlwind fell away and the towering trees washed over me and I was at peace. 

On another day, I sat at the Dodge Nature Center in the early morning. The geese were flying overhead, honking their arrival, some headed for a nest just over my shoulder while the red-winged blackbirds sang the morning into its new light. From the barn the roosters crowed and the clouds formed a moving picture of white cotton in the brilliant blue backdrop. But what had my eye was the giant Weeping Willow whose shade of green is a fleeting color mixed with yellows and greens and, I swear, we do not see this color any place else in nature. It is the signature of this dancing tree, a favorite, as it wakes up from its winter of barrenness. 

Weeping Willow. I wondered at its name. The scripture I have read tells me that “Creation is groaning”…was the Willow groaning with our loss, with our confusion, with our uncertainty? My experience that morning was that it was holding the space for the collective groaning of the humans who pass by with looks of loss, despair, fear, hope, love shining in our eyes. As the wind picked up, I watched its limber branches dance to greet the day and to bless me, reminding me to savor the gift of Here. 

“Stand still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you.” Many of us feel lost these days. Many of us experience the behaviors of others that emphasize a sense of being lost. Perhaps we would be wise in our standing still to remember that the forest, the trees, know where we are and to let it find us. It has worked for me and I pray it might work for you also.