Sequoias

(from a visit a few years ago)

Leaving my car at the entrance of the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias, I walk slowly through the deep snow and let the silence of the grove wrap around me, moving from one giant tree to the next. I place my hand on the thick red bark of one and feel its endurance.

Beneath my feet, its roots connect to the roots of the other trees in the grove, and I feel the strength of community. Leaning back, I marvel at the dimensions of a giant sequoia. In its canopy, an ecosystem of life exists, far above the visible life I see from the forest floor.

I feel insignificant here, and imagine how dwarfed I’d look in a photograph. These 3000-year-old elders of the mountains hold centuries of memories in their branches. In the quietness of the afternoon, I feel the presence of shared wisdom.

Beneath these trees that John Muir loved, I pick up three small, dark-green cones and hold them in one hand. The cones come from trees 300 feet tall and 30 feet around, yet they are tiny. Freshly cut down by Douglass squirrels, the cones tightly bind the seeds of giant trees inside, waiting to begin their lives. The cones will not open without the intense heat of a forest fire, a fire that would burn away the undergrowth and prepare the soil for new growth.

John Muir wished that sequoia juice could run in his veins, and he wrote in his notebook using sequoia juice. When he lived in these mountains, Muir said, “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

I linger by a creek and listen to it trickle through the grove. Birds hop over the snow looking for food. What would an intense fire do to my life? Would I be destroyed or strong enough to begin a new life?

At the end of this glorious winter day, the sun is also reluctant to leave. The light blue sky intensifies to a glowing orange that deepens to red, fades to pink, and then releases into the cobalt blue of night. Constellations of stars emerge and string the branches overhead with twinkling lights.