Morning Rituals and Madre: My Communion with Nature

Every morning, I toss peanuts in the shell to whatever critters hear me calling “Good morning, babies.”

They gather quickly. Stellars Jays drop like cobalt blue arrows from the cascara tree where they must sleep each night. Tiny birds and furry squirrels and chipmunks come out of nowhere.

Outside my kitchen, in back, stands an enormous cedar tree which must be a million feet tall and a million years old. Her trunk is as big around as a huge round dining table. I scramble up a little myrtle-covered rise to shelter under her and sit with my back against her trunk. It’s the most peaceful place on earth.

I look up and get a peak at the sky from under those enormous arms of hers. Her branches dance in the winds and bend under the snows, but always she stands, as a home to tiny critters, and big ones like deer and me whenever I need her. She has imparted much wisdom to me over the years. And she quietly named herself Madre, which she communicated to me ages ago when I asked her name. She has sent out roots that run deep and shallow. The shallow ones are the spawning ground for her babies, and Madre has countless smaller versions of herself growing nearby

Yes! Be still.  You can commune with trees and plants. They listen and they respond.  As Mary Oliver wrote in her poem entitled Today: “Stillness, one of the doors into the temple.”