TAKING ANTI-DEPRESSANTS-And Other Precious Rituals - by Kimball C. Pier

The March winds brought rain and then the quiet came. Snow began to fall, each flake heavy with moisture. They fell like tired doves onto the tree branches. The snow, welcome snow will feed the lakes and rivers. The house is so quiet and I can’t hear the trains on the distant tracks anymore. The fire crackles and I worry about the man I saw walking in the snow with his head down. My feet are warm in my fleece socks. His are not.

Then I think about how heavy the snow is and whether we will be able to get out tomorrow because I long to ski out on the trails where I hear nothing but my own breath. The man found shelter from the rain in the medical building but he smelled so foul that he was asked to leave. I wonder whether it would be possible to ski with the snow so deep. I am truly shallow.

In the morning, we went outside to survey the driveway. We discovered one of our Aspen trees had fallen during the night and it lay across the driveway with its branches stiff with ice and snow. I wanted to lift it up and make it not dead. But its roots had pulled out of the ground and when we tried to lift the tree, it wouldn’t move. We had to amputate all of its branches. The Skilsaw screamed through each branch and I dragged them one by one to the side of the house by the neighbor’s SeaDoo which I hated. We’d have to haul the pile of limbs away at some point. They all had buds on them because it seemed like it might be springtime there for a while. There was nothing left except the trunk now and we had to cut it into pieces so we could move it. I went in the garage and found a pushbroom and I began to knock all the snow and ice off of the other trees in our yard. They were weeping under the weight of it all. I wanted to save them from death and with each swing of my pushbroom, more ice and snow feel and the tree’s began to reach their arms upward again. A chunk of ice landed smack in my eye and scratched my cornea. I wondered if I would be able to ski with a scratched cornea. I am truly silly.

Then we discovered that a trip of Aspens had fallen by the mailbox, their bodies lying halfway across the road. Jon thought perhaps we could lift them up and brace them with boulders so they could live. I briefly thought about how much work that would be and by the time we were finished, there would be no parking left up at the Nordic ski center. Then I felt ashamed and began to help Jon lift the trees. They were too heavy for us even after we knocked the branches clear of snow and ice. And we surrendered. They had to be cut up and moved back with the other cut up tree. I felt like a murderess. If I were really devoted to saving the trees, I would have gotten the neighbors to help us but I really wanted to go skiing. I thought we could just go and buy new trees which is so typically American. Just throw it away and buy a new one. The other day, I saw the ragged, smelly man looking in the trash for cans and other things he could use or sell.

At dinner, Jon said he felt “off” all day and wasn’t quite sure what was wrong with him. I felt a little agitated too but I thought it might have been my usual Saturday mood. I was always anxious to go out and play and my mind raced like a Border Collie who had been cooped up for too long. He noticed that the snow was falling again and I suddenly felt very anxious about the trees. He’d spent about hour going around the yard knocking snow and ice off the trees as high as he could reach. “I got most of them except for the pine tree. He’s still pretty upset,” he said when he came inside with snow caked on his eyebrows. We looked at each other. “It’s the trees,” we said in unison. That’s why we felt off all day. “We didn’t try that hard to save them, did we?” he said. “No.” I said. They were so beautiful in the summer. They gave so much; the least we could have done was try to resuscitate them. Aspens grow prolifically even in conditions they don’t normally grow in such as by our mailbox where the ground is hard and dry. I wish I didn’t have such tender feelings about trees and rivers and animals and the oceans; I wish I didn’t care about everyone being well fed and housed because it hurts too much. I find joy in so many things, but I feel so much pain about so many things. Meditation, yoga, coffee, wine, anti-depressants, skiing, my bicycle rides…all precious little rituals to aid my journey through this life.

When did I recognize that the ocean breathes? When did I know and hold in my tender heart that raging forest fires are a consequence of human behavior? What moment was it that I reconciled what I knew deep within me and what I heard from my teachers that it was truth that granite rocks held soul and for certain that mountains speak? When did I know the frantic feeling inside me was Gaia’s grief? Such a painful moment of acute awareness. I could not contain it very well and felt I needed to cry or scream or laugh or vomit. What to do with this knowing that erupted into awareness?

An Urgent Prayer from Yahweh and Gaia (Mother Earth)

Dear humans-
Please repeat after me:
“Wisdom”…(“Yud” in Hebrew )
Now breathe out...until you are empty…Haaayy (“Behold” in Hebrew)
And breathe in….”Vav” (“The Great Connector” in Hebrew)
And breathe out..”Haaayy”
Breathe in…I am (Yud)
Dry. So dry…now breathe out Haaay
Behold Breathe in….vav “The Great Connector”
Breathe out….hayyy...
Yud-hay-vav-hay
Yahweh…

Now Gaia asks us,
“Remember your breath as you read this and breathe with me….”

My floor crunches when you step on me
all these thirsty pine needles…
I breathe wind that cools on summer evenings.
Creatures sleep in the shade of the swaying trees
so kind to lend their shade.
Parched.
My rivers only weep a little
my streams no longer whisper.
Something has shifted
and I no longer rest beneath the haven snow.
Thirsty. So thirsty.
I beckon the rain but it does not hear as it has before.
My lakes disappear
leaving naked flesh.
And I pray the mood will shift.
Sons and daughters:
Please care for me as I have mothered you.

Shhh..now…I hear the snap of gunfire (yud…I am)
the moan of tires…(haayy…so disappointed)
the whine of engines in the reaches…
A careless hand drops
an emptied can. (when you say Budweiser, you’ve said it all.)
And then a careless wave
sends a white hot match which gave
a single little thirsty tree
at first, a playful flame
which then became
a raging angry fire (Yud…)
blistering into a funeral pyre.

Death (hayyy)
so near, yet you do not hear.
It calls—it laughs and loves the game
of hubris.
Just keep driving, driving, driving
and buying
to fill the space between
you and me
until I say….
The End.

Yud-haay
vav-hayy….yud…..haayy….vav………..haaayyy