Tu B’Shevat | 5782
“…May it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grass – among all growing things and there may I be alone, and enter into prayer…May I express there everything in my heart, and may all the foliage of the field – all grasses, trees, and plants – awake at my coming, to send the powers of their life into the words of my prayer so that my prayer and speech are made whole through the life and spirit of all growing things….May I then pour out the words of my heart before your Presence like water.” – Rabbi Nachman’s Prayer for Nature
When I Am Among The Trees | Mary Oliver
When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks, and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily. I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often. Around me, the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.”The light flows from their branches. And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”
