The Ancient Sequoia

July 13, 2020
Oakland, CA
Sunny and cool

The California giant sequoia trees are a miracle of nature. Like the redwoods, a sequoia can have a trunk that has been hollowed out and made into a small cave by fire. There is room enough inside the trunk to sit down and eat your lunch and still the tree keeps growing. Inside, we are surrounded by the energy of a living, growing tree, yet it is dark, and quiet with a mysterious emptiness.

The tree welcomes us with a complete lack of reaction to us. It is a hull. There is nothing there to judge us, to criticize us, to praise us, or to compare us to someone better than us. We can sit in total freedom. We can’t break any rules because there are no rules to break. There is only one rule to follow—don’t make any rules!

The tree has been hollowed out by fire and we become hollowed out by the fires of our life’s calamities. Sometimes we don’t even need calamities. There may be an interior fire which burns all of our self-imposed rules to ashes. We may only be conscious of the ashes now, but, like the tree, we are still growing around the edges of our inner emptiness. Someday, we too, will be able to offer travelers a place to sit in peace and eat their lunch, free of any expectations . We will feel the energy of life surrounding us as the trunk of the tree surrounds the hollow space inside. The hollow space is sacred even as the tree is sacred.

Listen. Do you hear a deep rumbling coming from the roots? It is the Om, the sound of creation.

From the cave,
Dorothy Devianiben

What I have been reading: “Accepting: How to Increase Your Awareness of Perfection” by Lee Coit, Las Brisas Publishing, Ventura, CA , 1991, revised edition, 2010. I thought I was getting Lee Coit’s first book, “Listening”, but, somehow this one came instead. Maybe it was a message? How to see the positive in the negative, all from Lee. Coit’s personal experience, down-to-earth and practical. We all can do it!