ROOTS AND CURRENTS

Words and Music by Jim Robbins
 

 

 

 

 

In a place that dreams, ten trunks
rise from a low throne, the breath
of vanished tribes whispering
that we have stepped

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into another life. A trail leads

past roots through the domain

of the buckeye and the wild cat.

I see a god of the hunt

 

 

i

in my mind's eye as deer
crash through the brush,
the tribes pulled into quiet currents
as we wake to a vast ocean
 

of breath. The sprouts
of horse chestnuts plunge
into dark earth. I suddenly feel
like I could flow through all things.



                    Suite No. 5, Eighteenth Movement:

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ROOTS AND CURRENTS
 

 

 

   My wife claimed to like my watercolor of two buckeye trees joined at the roots. We discovered that sometimes two or more tree trunks grow from one seed, and since my wife and I considered their union symbolic of our love for each other, we vowed that when one of us died, the surviving spouse would spread the ashes of the other on the roots of those trees. We affectionately called the trees “the couple,” and we would slow down to gaze at them every time we drove through Watt’s Valley, where we would occasionally trespass in the oak woodlands on private property in the evenings. Thanks to the couple, we realized that buckeye trees change dramatically from one season to the next.
  Often, when we were traveling together in the car, my wife and I would read each other's mind. Our thoughts would often concern people or events that had nothing to do with where we were or where we were going or what had recently transpired, yet somehow we would think of the same things. It didn't just happen because we knew each other well: often a topic would occur out of the blue, and we both would be thinking about it. Sometimes we would try to figure out who had first experienced the thought and who was being telepathic. Sometimes I realized that I had experienced a mental image or a phrase, and my wife would then bring up the subject. Other times my wife would have the thought and I would bring up the subject. Eventually we realized that we were both telepathic in the car when "mingling auras"--a term that we used to describe the phenomenon. Whenever we described the phenomenon to other people, no one seemed to believe us.

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Buckeye Tree near Native American Village Site

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   Once, as I explored the Sycamore Creek watershed, I followed a trail that led to a ridge with the most majestic buckeye tree that I’ve ever encountered. Ten large trunks rose up from its root system out of what looked like a low throne. As I approached it, I almost tripped over a small pounding stone with two mortars. I continued on the trail and found myself standing in the middle of a house pit. I have mentioned that I became weird after my spiritual awakening--as I stood in the house pit, I suddenly had a vision of a god with antlers on his head and a spear in his hand. A few seconds later I heard a deer crashing through the brush on a hill near me. It was as if the god was alerting me about the deer. I have experienced visions of gods and goddesses at other Native American sites before, as if shamans had created god forms for cooperative nature spirits to ensoul. I sighed and whispered that I was too out of shape to chase the deer. I suddenly felt a wave of laughter from the place where the god was standing.
  I suspected that other pounding stones were in the area, so I explored the ridge a little more and discovered another pounding stone with four mortars brimming with dirt and humus. Not far from the pounding stone, I found a collapsed mine and an indentation in the ground where the miners had set up their encampment. I wasn’t surprised to find evidence of mining at a Native American village site because I had found other Native American sites in the area with collapsed mines. Miners during the gold rush had exploited the Native Americans as workers.
  Unlike the other collapsed mines in the area, this one had not been dynamited to keep unsuspecting explorers from falling into a deep hole and disappearing without a trace. I was afraid for a moment that the mine had collapsed on the miners and the Native American workers. The mine, still containing a small hole on one side, had been conquered by poison oak. I imagined that a mountain lion used it as its den.
  I returned to the buckeye and experienced a freshness that I’ve rarely ever encountered. Though one of the largest and oldest buckeyes in the woodland forest, it was emanating its freshness into the surrounding ocean of air, its breath carried by currents all through the forest. Most of the fallen buckeye seeds had already sprouted one root that was plunging into the earth. The tree and its progeny were pulling water and nutrients from all the tribes of trees and flowers and animals and people that came before them and eventually breathing their energy back into the woodlands.
  The buckeye on another level was startling because it was so different from the other buckeyes in the area. When I took my wife to see it one day, she literally could not believe that it was a buckeye tree. The buckeye reminded me that nature is another order of existence full of mysterious creatures and unexpected spiritual vibrations, and you never know when you’re going to encounter them or experience an unexpected spiritual connection. As in any relationship, you just need to remain open.