In some ways, I’m glad I wasn’t in CT when Hurricane Sandy ripped through our lives. I have had enough stress in my life, that my adrenals are no longer high functioning. Too much, and I’m a wreck for days. But I’m almost sorry I missed seeing the land spirits save our house.
Gardening is one very effective way of connecting with land spirits, and I’ve been doing that since I moved to Connecticut. We don’t own the wooded lot behind our house, and because our own plot is tiny, we had lots of shade. I longed to grow vegetables, but made do with cherishing native shade perennials. Growing these is a slow process. They take years to spread, and I lost some of what I put in to slugs. My long term goal was to spread them into the woods where non-natives had taken over. I spent a lot of time outside talking to trees, and plants. As my spiritual practice became more defined, I set up a cupped stone as a place to leave libations for the land spirits.
Then came the hurricane. The trees behind the house are fully mature, many of them 80 ft or more. There are sugar maples, black cherry with their dark, twisted trunks, and black walnuts, that spread from root suckers and fix nitrogen in the soil. At the end of our driveway was a large maple, it’s trunk three feet in diameter. My clothes line was attached to it and I said hello whenever I went out to hang wash. I love hanging out the wash. It is always a good excuse to step outside on a nice day, and there was a period of time when that was a sincere need.
When the wind started, I can only imagine the trees whipping in spiral patterns. I’ve watched them twist in high winds, but this I did not see.
When the storm finally quieted, one tree had scraped the front of the house, the upper branch ending within a few feet of the kitchen green house window. A second tree fell diagonally across our back deck, taking out the stairs and dinging the roof of my office and very lightly denting the hood of my husbands car. The TWO that would have fallen directly on the main part of the house were leaning on that beautiful maple, the bark cracking under the strain.
When I got back to Connecticut, I poured an entire bottle of my favorite homemade grape mead in the roots to thank the tree. And we had to say goodbye. When the tree crew came, there was no untangling three trees, and my friend came down with the other two. I watched most of it before having to leave for work. It hurt.
But I saved a part of her. I have this strand of prayer beads. From one of her smaller branches, I cut a piece and made a bead. She is now part of my prayer practice, and I am reminded whenever I touch them. But she left me another gift that I cherish nearly as much as I cherish my home. With the trees gone (and we did take out three more that were leaning) I have enough sun to grow vegetables. Last year, I started work on a food garden. The many (many!) pieces of tree have become the edges of raised beds. They hold water like a sponge, releasing it to the plant’s need, and host fungi that enhances my soil fertility. Death leads to new life, one feeding the other.
Stepping deeply into the place where you live is a relationship. The plants, the stones, the human-built structures that are near us are all elements of our daily lives. Touch them. Listen for their voices. Watch for their auras and the non-embodied beings that live in and among them. Feed them. There are rewards for being a good neighbor.