Becoming Cedar

"One foot after the other", I told myself, "keep going....". It was beginning to feel like trudging. The scenery was delicious, but my body was beginning to complain with tight muscles and blisters after four hours hiking, much of it uphill, with a pack on my back. Realizing I had been just watching my feet, I looked up: my heart leapt, my step lightened and I floated to the next bend where I saw a Western Red Cedar waiting for me. I greeted her as an old friend, delighted. Cedar and I had become friends in the San Juan Islands. How surprised and thrilled I was to meet her here in Big Sur. Though I loved her I didn't know much about her or where she lived. Rejoicing in renewing an old friendship I began stroking her boughs and sharing with her the beauty of her home. Reluctantly I walked on, but soon realized the woods were sprinkled with Cedar's all around. I felt completely at home now and my step remained light.

I was on a led wilderness trip and we had ritually left our names behind, symbolizing leaving our culture behind. That evening around the fire some were sharing new names that had come to them. No name had come to me so I remained silent until all of a sudden my mouth opened and I said, "My name is Cedar." The thought had never gone through my mind, just straight out of my mouth. I gratefully accepted the gift, fully expecting to reclaim Sasha when we returned to our mundane lives. But each time someone called me Cedar I felt it go deep within and tug on something I had always longed for. Now, 35 years later my name is still Cedar and I managed to marry into the last name of Moss.

On that trip I developed an uncharacteristically obsessive concern about rattlesnakes: imagining them crawling into my sleeping bag at night, afraid to walk through brush.... Then one afternoon, as a few of us hiked along, I noticed a rattlesnake curled up about 2 feet from where I had just placed my foot. It rattled and began to move. I froze but it was not out of fear. I was captivated. Wow, here it is; my greatest fear...I was fascinated and couldn't take my eyes off of it. A friend saw what was happening, grabbed me and pulled me away.

I became Cedar and a neon sign flashed around rattlesnake...hmmm.

Why does a snake shed its skin? So it can grow into a bigger self, unrestricted by who it used to be. Here I was out in the wilderness finding out that I not only like Cedar trees but I am Cedar. Who I know myself to be expands to include a tree; a skin is shed and I grow into a broader knowing of who I am. Thus my fascination with snake; as snake I learn to let an old self go to become, not someone different, but an expanded version of who I was. And yes, I was a bit afraid of what came next...

The smoke of Cedar is used by some native tribes to purify, revive and even heal. This Cedar identity came to me at a time when I was beginning to realize that I too lived to heal, purify and revive others as Cedar does.

My journey with Cedar began to form who I knew myself to be and it continues to do so. Just this morning, during my morning walk, I stood under the broad enfolding branches of a very old Cedar tree. I visit her most mornings. I go to stand beneath her umbrella of nourishing holding. When I step under her boughs I feel I have entered sacred ground, here among the houses and the cars and manicured lawns, and children heading off to school, stands a Cedar, holding space for the sacred, and healing happens. I come away feeling somehow put back together. Tears of recognition come to my eyes....oh, yes, this is me. This is what I do for others; what Cedar is doing now for me, I do for others. I open my arms, I make space sacred and hold people gently within that circle of care, so healing can happen. Still, after 35 years I am learning more about this identity I am growing into as Cedar, shedding old skins as I go.

Cedar is my doorway into an ecological identity, but just the doorway. I am not only Cedar and Moss and snake...I am the water coming out of the shower head and I lament with it as I too am domesticated. I bring my shower water greetings from Willow Lake, offering the shower water my experience of diving into Willow Lake; feeling alive and even more feeling the lake so alive, in a way that is missing from the domesticated water, just as there is an aliveness I long for as I live my domesticated life. Together we share Willow Lake and feel a little more alive.

.Every trail I follow, I find me. Every place I go within myself I find the greater world, the more than human world, the open door into all that is.