“WELCOME TO MY UMBRELLA TREE,” says Hawk Elder Edna Gordon, seating herself opposite me at her well-weathered backyard picnic-table, gesturing with a wide sweep of her hand at the rich tapestry of overhanging branches arching all the way to the ground around us, creating a kind of natural gazebo.
She nods at the tree as at a cherished old friend, and nods at me, her visitor.
“This old tree’s the whole of Creation, you know, if you got eyes to see…,” she says, and her throaty voice trails away thoughtfully.
I look upward into the drooping canopy of heavily leafed branches all but encasing us.
“Like a house of leaves,” I say.
“More’n that,” she says, “…the whole Creation’s right here in this tree, if you can see it… You’re sittin’ right inside o’ Creation itself! Don’t you see it? Can’t you feel it?”
I put the palm of my hand on the rough bark of the trunk.
“I …I can feel it, I think,” I say.
“Your hand on the tree, that’s Life on Life,” Edna says. “This Umbrella tree here’s at the center of the Universe! And so are we!” (more…)
