Christmas Star through Cottonwood Branches

For all the years we have lived in this house I have fallen asleep each night and awoken each morning in the presence of the massive wild cottonwood tree that fills the wide round frame of our bedroom window.

We have not curtained this window, preferring instead to leave the garden always visible. Each morning and night through all seasons I have daily observed my companion tree. When our daughter was tiny, I woke each day gazing at two miracles: the tender roundness of her sleeping cheek and the simultaneous change and sameness of the cottonwood, my window to the wild world beyond the window.

Flanked by high cedar hedges, our garden is an oasis of astonishing quietude in the midst of this large metropolitan area. A creek runs behind it, but like the wild animals that inhabit its banks and the band of wild brush beyond our garden, the water remains mostly invisible.

Only once did we see the flowing creek from our bedroom window. That afternoon we watched in terrified fascination as the muddy rain-swollen waters rushed by. They washed even around the trunk of my wild cottonwood, which grows just below the level of the back lawn. By evening, the rain had stopped and the flood abated.

Over the years, strong winds have also shaken the cottonwood. After one wild autumn storm it dropped one elegantly arched limb, leaving only the broken stub. It took me a long time to adapt my eyes to that gap. But gradually, the space filled in until I almost forgot the former view.

When we first moved here, I never tired of watching the squirrels as they scampered along the branches of this tree. In the early spring its leaves were small and bright yellowish green, and the activity of the frisky little creatures was clearly visible among the sun-jeweled leaves that stood against the brilliant spring sky. Sometimes they would run out to the end of a long limb and leap into the next tree.

Without my glasses, I can no longer see the squirrels or the passing birds distinctly. But this autumn, after the leaves had fallen, I saw two larger creatures clambering in the branches. Grabbing my specs, I was rewarded with a clear view of two masked raccoon faces that seemed to be starting directly at me from their perch in the tree.

Today is Christmas. I woke early and lay very still, gazing out at the cottonwood, still shrouded in dark. Then the miracle happened. A brilliant star sparkled out between the bare branches. Just as suddenly, it disappeared. I moved my head, trying keep it in view, but to little avail.

After much experimentation, I found the best way to see the star was to lie very still until the branches moved, or the cloud moved, and the star showed itself to me. Here was my ancient and gentle lesson patiently repeating itself once again.

As David Whyte says, the soul is not about doing, but about "being: the indiscriminate enjoyment of everything that comes our way."*

And as Franz Kafka says,

You don’t need to leave your room.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Don’t even listen, simply wait.
Don’t even wait.
Be quite still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you
to be unmasked, it has no choice.
It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

(*The Heart Aroused, Anchor Doubleday, 1994, 20)