October 5, 2009
In the presence of Geb
Last week I walked up to Marquand Park one day at lunch, to visit its threadleaf Japanese maple tree. It’s my favorite tree in the park, decked in patches of moss and lichen fans, with its wriggling gray branches twisting and turning intricately upon themselves until they erupt into radiating domes of leaves as fine and soft as grass. Standing beneath it is like being inside a hill of air and branches, looking up through the shelter of a sheer, living veil to catch fragmentary glimpses of sky.
Maybe that’s why it’s the place I go to when I want to feel close to Geb. Beneath my feet, there’s the soil, rain-moist, black, and crumbled, and the lush yet delicate grasses that grow in that green shade; beneath my hands, the springy coils of the tree’s limbs catch and shift with the rising wind; above my head, the arch of the tree echoes and yearns for the arch of heaven. A verdant place at the heart of the cosmos, where earth and air and sky all meet in vibrant life, sometimes moving, sometimes still, always at peace.
And Father Earth smiles, wordless presence, unfathomable and comforting as the ground that supports me, that cradles me — and Bast my Mother twines Herself through the branches above and behind me, a flicker of stirring breeze through my hair, the warmth of Her regard like a silent purr.
In thanks, I give energy back to the tree, with a prayer for its old and fragile branches to survive the winter’s snow and ice:
May you be strong to endure the wind and the coming winter.
May you be flexible to dance with the storms.
May you live. May you live. May you live.
And as I open my eyes, a bright lance of sun dazzles me, great Ra reaching down through the trees, through the leaves to touch my face.
Dua Netjer! Dua Geb! Nekhtet!
