Dawn comes up
like a beautiful meal being served.
We are hungry and distracted,
so in love with the cook.
—Rumi
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Spring arrives, and keeps arriving, in tiny revelations.
The first green buds are appearing on willow branches.
Ice has loosened its grip on the creek's edges.
There is a subtle shift in light, a promise of longer days.
+
from Greta Anderson's Nature Journal,
Vaasa, Finland, 1891
Take heart, kultaseni.
When Annu reached the grove of Ancient Oaks, she stopped. One tree stood apart from the others, broader and more magnificent than any she remembered. Its bark was marked with deep furrows that formed patterns which she recognized from her dreams.
She approached slowly and placed both palms against the solid trunk.
The mature oak’s gesture reminded her of muscular curves—the same curves Olli’s shoulders and back made whenever he swung his axe to split logs for their woodpile.
Beneath her hands, in the quietest of all quiet moments, she felt it. A steady rhythm like a heartbeat. It was slower, patient as seasons, but unmistakably his.
Olli?
The wind moved through his branches, and she heard his voice—not in words, but in the language the forest had been teaching her.
Annu. My beloved. I am here.
She pressed her face against his trunk and allowed the tears to come—tears of recognition and release. To Olli, her tears felt like the blessing of rain.
He who had been lost to her was now found. Changed, yet still Olli.
I have been waiting for you to find me, Annu. I have been calling you home.
The days blurred into a new rhythm, and spring unfolded around them in brief microseasons of wonder. Delicate chartreuse-green leaves opened on Olli's highest branches, and the first purple crocuses pushed through snow at his roots. Songbirds returned and built their nests, finding shelter in him.
Annu could feel his consciousness as she rested in his shade—a slow peace that moved like sap, filling her with deep contentment.
Olli, in turn, sensed the kindness of Annu’s presence through vibrations in the soil and the warmth of her body against his bark. He heard the sound of her voice rippling through the air around his leaves.
As Annu spent her days in the forest grove, she was falling in love again with Olli in his new form. Transformed as he was, Olli could still appreciate how this ordeal had made his bride even more beautiful to him.
After a week of sleeping rough beneath his canopy, Annu built a small shelter at the edge of the grove—just enough to keep her dry during occasional spring rains. Early each morning, she went back to their cottage, which still served as the village apothecary. Here, she tended to those who needed her care.
In the twilight, Annu returned to Olli's presence, bringing stories of her day along with warm bread from their oven, which she shared with the birds. There was wildness in the way she pressed herself against his bark, feeling the slow rumble of sap rising. When she touched Olli, Annu felt the way his pulse drummed along with the season like a prayer. Beneath them, something stirred: roots tangled with roots in an earthy longing.
As she slept curled against Olli’s massive trunk, her breathing mingled with the wind in his branches, and she dreamed that he was human again. . . They were dancing in their cottage kitchen, her skirts spinning wide, while he hummed old melodies. Then he read aloud to her by the lantern light, just as he always had.
Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me.
—Song of Songs 2:13
And because trees do dream, Olli also had a vision of being a human again . . .
He was in the forest working, when his razor-sharp saw slipped, grazing his thigh as he was cutting a knotty branch. He ran into the cottage calling for Annu. Her response reassured him despite his worry: Come sit, she said, and he obeyed the authority that lived in her steadiness.
Blood soaked through his trouser leg while she gathered what she needed—clean linen, needle, thread from the basket that never left her side. Her fingers moved without trembling. Even when he winced, she did not hesitate, applying pressure to stop the bleeding, cleaning the gash with water hot enough to make him curse.
Look at me, she said when the needle pierced his skin, not at what I'm mending.
Olli’s eyes found hers and held there, while she stitched him back together, each pull of thread a promise: I will not let you come undone.
Later, when the bandage was fastened and the bleeding had stopped, his wife kissed the unmarked skin just above the wound, tasting salt and sawdust and the particular sweetness of a man who trusted her to tend his broken places.
Annu turned over in her sleep and had a new dream. . .
She was speaking, but this time Tree-Olli could not hear her words.
He knew her presence through vibration, but her voice—the voice that used to make him laugh until his sides ached—had become just another sound the forest makes, no different from rain nor the cry of distant birds.
She grieved her love of Olli, who would outlive her by centuries. She knew his memory of her touch would fade into the amnesia of seasons, until she would become but a brief warmth that once blessed his roots. In her dream now, winter covered them both in snow, and spring forgot their names.
She slept restlessly, and woke up shivering.
Weeks passed, and spring deepened into early summer.
A heavy truth began settling in Annu’s heart like a stone. One beautifully warm day, she gathered the courage to ask Olli to return to his human form.
Come back to me, she pleaded.
His answer came through the wind gentle, but final.
I have become something new, rakkaani.
My roots go deeper than I ever imagined possible.
To return would be to die.
Annu tried bargaining with forest spirits. She searched her grandmother's book of recipes for some remedy that might restore him. All to no avail. So she renewed her courage and remained devoted. To love a tree required patience and a posture of listening; her tenderness and loyalty were undeniable.
One evening, as she sat against his trunk watching fireflies flash in the gathering dusk, Olli's voice came softer than she had ever heard it.
There is another way, Annu. If you choose it.
You could join me here. Become part of deeper time.
We could grow together. You, the graceful Beech tree beside the Oak.
Root to root, branch to branch, through all the seasons to come.
The invitation hung in the air between them like a bridge.
She could cross or turn away.
Annu felt the weight of an impossible choice settling over her heart.
Sit down in this circle.
Taste your lover’s mouth in yours.
Be empty of worrying.
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking
Live in silence.
Flow down
and down
in always widening
rings of being.
—Rumi
To be continued . . .
The entire story will be published in one small chapter per week.
Part One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight
Dear One,
In writing this chapter, I was inspired by the words of beloved poet, Rumi.
Coleman Barks wrote: “His presence and his poetry was, and is, inclusive, allied with the impulse to praise and recognize every being and every moment as sacred.”
Today, his poetry provides a balm and a refuge from the war-torn world we are living in. I’m never tired of entering his peaceful, loving, enchanted world.
I hope you enjoy this chapter that lightly explores the idea of a generous love that endures, takes on new forms, and allows each party to grow and flourish.
And always, I make this for you with an eye to the microseasons that hold our lives.
xo Ann
Photo One: A pair of mushrooms, Cedar Falls Park, Chapel Hill NC
Photo Two: A Delta Flower Scarab Beetle on milkweed blossom, Brumley Forest Nature Preserve, Hillsborough, NC (referenced in my poem last week)
Photo Three: A heart-carved tree, along Robin’s Trail, Johnston Mills Nature Preserve, Chapel Hill, NC
Photo Four: I love the way Bloodroot flowers sometimes emerge, wrapped in their own leaves on a cold spring morning. Johnston Mills Nature Preserve, Chapel Hill, NC
Photo Five: My favorite pair of gemels—two trees growing in close partnership. Johnston Mills Nature Preserve, Chapel Hill, NC
I’m falling deeper and deeper into the enigmatic, reverent trance of your story. Oh how I hope Annu joins the lineage of the forest’s deepest roots. “To return would be to die.” I will never look at two trees growing alongside each other the same.🙏
Your weaving of nature, photography, Rumi and observations on love creates a tapestry I want to be enfolded in. This is gorgeous; and the turn, the invitation, is exciting.