By Lisa Hills
My son’s pre-school teacher asked for a description of our winter holiday celebrations. As I wrote about our eclectic traditions -- traditions that include a Buddhist metta prayer said as we light the menorah and a live pine tree put up at the winter solstice to celebrate Jesus’ birthday -- I thought about the moment when I decided that I wanted to raise a child and start this family. I was tramping through the lush forested grounds of a retreat center in rural Virginia, two hours outside of D.C., my childhood home, when I encountered a collection of maple, oak and elm trees that inspired me to become a parent. What these trees taught me became a parenting touchstone and the foundation of my family life.
I found these trees while on a weeklong silent meditation retreat. I had been clambering through the woods searching for some connection to its vibrant spring aliveness and some relief from a festering childhood wound. The wound had re-opened almost as soon as the retreat started. I had chosen this retreat 3,000 away from my adult home so that I could attend a meditation retreat with my sister Megan, a newcomer to meditation who still lived in D.C. When Megan suggested that we go on a retreat together, I responded as any younger sibling who has begged an older sibling to play will understand. I leapt. I researched. I picked one that focused on cultivating loving kindness and joy and one close to her. I signed us up. My big sister not only wanted to play with me but also wanted to play my way.
Once there, however, after I said the last words I would say to Megan for a week (an awkward “enjoy the retreat”), a painful aspect of our childhood relationship surfaced. As children and teenagers, Megan and I had spent large amounts of time occupying the same house without interacting. We were both desperately lonely but we regarded one another as rivals for our parents’ attention rather than companions who could comfort one another. We also believed this sense of isolation was our fault – that if we were more interesting, more accomplished, funnier, nicer, more outgoing, more reserved, more like the other, we would get the attention that we craved.
As participants in a silent retreat, we passed one another without talking or making eye contact. Once again, we experienced our own personal demons without helping one another. I took the sadness, shame and loneliness for walks in the woods. Walking’s rhythms made these feelings easier to bear.
On my fifth day of tramping, I paused just before descending on a path into the woods. As I took in the view of the trees, a thought surprised me: No one had purposefully planted these trees. This insight gained momentum in my body. No one lovingly tended to them, yet here they were, thriving. Asking whether these trees deserved to be here or were worthy of attention did not make any sense. These questions, however, plagued me about my own existence. I felt unwanted, but I was, like these trees, alive. I felt the burden of my belief in my own unworthiness fall off. Joy replaced grief. Then another thought emerged. I wanted to be close to life as it grew from seed to a full life; I wanted to be close to life’s primal impulses and desires as they emerged; I wanted to see them close up and learn more about them; I wanted a baby.
I walked rapidly down the path. I felt part of the woods. When I reached a stream, I walked into it and sat down in its two-feet deep waters. I lay back and felt the current moving over me, washing off the last remnants of grief. The stream had soaked up the sun’s warmth and had only a little of its spring chill left. As I absorbed this warmth, my smile broadened and I submerged my head.
Megan and I both survived the retreat. We shared an amazing hug the evening before the retreat ended. We still awkwardly hold our shared childhood pain, but we don’t blame one another for this pain as often. When difficult emotions erupt in our family, I remember those trees and how they convinced me to become a parent. Like those trees, we are forces of nature. When our emotions rumble and flash, I try to pause and pay attention to them as I did to the trees, the stream, and the sun. What do they have to teach me about life as a human on this planet?
