Naga Tree, Part 1

Nagas are sometimes said to live in powerful trees, and there's no local tree more powerful than the Cellon Oak, Florida's state champion live oak located just a little bit north of Gainesville.

The trunk is 30 feet in circumference. The oak is 85 feet high, and the average spread of the crown is 160 feet. Supposedly it is visible from space via Google Earth!

One picture can't do this tree justice, because to get the whole tree in a photo you have to back up about a quarter of a mile—so I'll post a couple of shots. Here's a closeup, above.

The Cellon (pronounced SEE-lun) Oak was named for a descendant of one of Alachua County's pioneer families. Painter Angela Hoppe has rendered a lovely image of this tree that graces the poster of this weekend's Santa Fe College Spring Arts Festival.

Purple Wisteria

As long as I'm on a wisteria kick, I thought I'd post a picture of the purple-flowered plant I pass on my way to work every day.

This picture was taken in mid-morning light, which was rather harsh. The blossoms have also begun to fade a little bit.

I learned last year that if I don't stop and take pictures of certain plants within a very short window of time, that chance disappears for another year. Wisteria is one of the plants that doesn't bloom for that long, and our dogwood trees have already started to lose their flowers and leaf out. I saw a big flurry of dogwood blossoms coming down in a breeze just this morning, like dakinis dancing in the wind.

The phlox, however, will bloom for quite a while—pink and purple carpets of wildflowers along the roads and in the old fields.

Pine with Wisteria

I couldn't resist posting this one too. For more information, see "White Wisteria" (previous post).

Remember that you can click on the picture for a better view.

White Wisteria

This may become known as the Spring When Everything Bloomed at Once. I pass a tall pine tree on my way to work that is covered in white wisteria, a vine that climbs almost to the top of the tree.

Since I've only figured out how to post one picture per blog entry, I decided on the closeup (above) because it gives a better view of the wisteria's flowers—but the picture of the whole tree with the vine climbing up it is pretty impressive, too.

Wisteria is a member of the pea family, and Wikipedia says there are about 10 species of climbing vines native to the Eastern United States and the Asian countries of China, Korea, and Japan.

I've always loved the purple wisteria, and the little plant we started from a cutting that belonged to my mother's neighbor is hanging in there but not doing well enough to warrant a photo. The white-flowered wisteria is not as common down here, so my jaw dropped about a foot when I first saw this vine on our neighborhood pine tree.

I think in one of my parallel lives, I live in an old wood frame house with a huge porch that is shaded by a thick, luxuriant growth of purple wisteria. In the hot summer afternoons after I come back from the springs, I drink limeade on the front porch and swish the bugs away with my grandmother's heart-shaped palm leaf fan.

I just found out that this vine was planted by my neighbor Bonnie's aunt. Talk about deep roots in the neighborhood! (See previous post.)

Bonnie's Flowering Dogwood

My neighbor Bonnie lives in a house that sits where her mama and daddy's home used to be, at the highest point of the glen. She has an unobstructed view of the setting sun and some of the most wonderful wildflowers I've ever seen, and she also has this magnificent dogwood tree that she says is a descendent of the old dogwood she remembers when she was growing up.

She has often told me, "I would never want to live anywhere else."

My family moved so much when I was young that it is hard for me to imagine what it must be like to be rooted so deeply to one place. I am rooted here, now, by love—but that's not the same as loving a place you've grown up in, a place where you and your parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins once, twice, and thrice removed all have history going back probably hundreds of years.

If I had to choose them, I'd choose two places where I felt rooted growing up. When I was very young, my paternal grandparents' house in Arlington, Texas, was a stable center for family vacations. When I was a little bit older, my roots shifted to my great-aunt and uncle's old house in Orlando, and then to my parents' house there.

As an adult, I've lived in North Central Florida longer than I've lived anywhere else—but the roots I've put down here are very shallow compared to those of my neighbors.

The flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) is described in Florida's Best Native Landscape Plants as "One of northern Florida's most attractive and well-loved trees...a showy indicator of spring." Bonnie's dogwood is certainly putting on a show this spring!

If you live anywhere in the eastern U.S. from Massachusetts to Central Florida and west to Illinois, Oklahoma, and Texas, you've probably seen this tree and know what a welcome sight its flowers can be after a long, cold winter.

An Offering to a Naga

In Machik's Complete Explanation, the Tibetan saint Machik Labdron explains to her followers that there are many unseen beings and spirits that co-inhabit our world.

Even though I've never been one to see such beings, I have absolutely no trouble in believing they exist. I can't see ultraviolet or infrared light either, or electricity, or atoms, yet scientists assure me that these things exist—so why not nagas?

Nagas–spirits who live in or near water or powerful trees–are said to be of three types. Some are "bad guys," mischievous and hurtful. Some are "good guys," and even protect the dharma teachings. Some are mutable, and can be good guys at one time and bad guys at another.

One of my teachers, Khenpo Ugyen Tenzin, has said he thinks a naga may live at our neighborhood spring.

One of my other teachers, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche, recently gave me instructions on how to make offerings to our neighborhood naga.

So yesterday afternoon found me rushing to the grocery after work to buy milk and sugar—because nagas like dairy products and sweets—and then rushing home to change into shorts and drive the five minutes to the spring, just as the sun was setting.

I was in luck. The last two spring visitors were leaving on bicycles when I drove up. The only other people there were fishing at some distance from the spring. So I had some privacy, which was good.

I waded into the water and made the offering, following Khenpo's instructions as well as I was able, then stood there for a few minutes to take in the scene. It was lovely, as always. I wondered if I would ever be able to see a naga.

Today, I received two pieces of very welcome news. I am not saying this good fortune is connected with the offering, but given that everything is connected, ultimately, I would not be a bit surprised.

The most surprising thing, though, was how happy I felt that by making the offering, I had done something helpful for an unseen being, and for the Earth that sustains us.

Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche recently stressed to me, when I told him how inspired I am by HH Karmapa's commitment to helping the environment, that there are two reasons why it is important to take care of our surroundings.

First, of course, is because our environment sustains us, so by helping it we are actually helping ourselves.

Second is because of the unseen beings, like nagas, who can be sickened by pollution–and since it's human beings who cause pollution, guess who becomes the target for revenge by the bad guy nagas? We do.

So I am wondering if a lot of us started making appropriate offerings to the unseen beings and spirits in our local areas, could we help turn back the tide of pollution and destruction that seems to lurk everywhere we look?

And could we, for our children and grandchildren, preserve even a bit of the best that Florida has to offer?

Note: Naga offerings, and other such offerings, always come with specific instructions that I am not qualified to give. Ask your teacher what you can do, though, and you might be as surprised as I was.

Plum Blossom Spring

Every spring it's a contest between the redbuds and the plums to see which will bloom first. This year it was the plums, but not by much because we are having a very late spring.

Plum blossoms always remind me of a wonderful art exhibition that was held back in the 1980s at the museum where I used to work, the University Art Museum at UC Berkeley (now the Berkeley Art Museum). I still have the catalog: Bones of Jade - Soul of Ice: The Flowering Plum in Chinese Art.

The title was taken from a poem by Su Shi:

In Flowering-Plum Village at the foot of LuoFu Mountain,

The flowering plums' bones are of jade and snow, and their souls of ice.

In their multitude the blossoms seem moonlight hanging from the trees,

In their brightness they are alone with Orion on the horizon at dusk.

In solitude I live on rivers and seas,

Melancholy like a sick crane perching in a deserted garden.

Heavenly scent and the land's foremost beauty: a comforting sight!

They know I am heavy with wine and ready to bring forth pure, warm verse.

Here's another good one, by Zhu Dunru:

At the old creek, a single flowering plum;

It escaped being locked in a garden or park.

The road is far, the mountain deep; it does not mind the cold.

It seems to play hide-and-seek with spring.

Hidden thoughts—who knows them?

Contracting friendships it's always hard to hit it right.

Lone romance, lone fragrance—

The bright moon comes to look for me.

And finally, Wang Wei:

You have come from my home town

You must know about things at home.

On the day you left, had the winter plum

In front of my open-work window blossomed yet?

What blooms first where you live?