The girl who played among the trees

Sometimes our dreams are actually our reality in color...

Last night I had a dream. It has lingered with me like many of my more meaningful dreams do....

I saw a girl with long dark hair walking into a woods line with a dog. He was her companion. I know this because he walked willingly beside her. She never spoke or looked at him though. She didn't have to. It was like they were connected, internally linked.  Each confident stride was like they were walking towards their preordained destiny.   I wondered where they were going.


As the girls feet touched the leaf littered forest floor she morphed into a tall cedar tree. Her legs turned to ruff flaky bark, as the transformation continued up her body. The last part of her human self to change was her left hand. Simultaneously the dog morphed into a man. In the split second of their simultaneous transformation the man and girl were holding hands. He never looked at her but continued walking forward in his human form releasing her hand as the space between them widened with each step.

Then I woke up. I'm wasn't sure why the image of the dog man and the Cedar tree girl holding hands stuck with me. Having it do so makes me wonder of it's deeper meaning... Maybe it means I had an extra heaping of crazy?
...................

The other day I had made a comment to my mom that I wanted to plant pine trees along the our property line. She suggested that I transplant the volunteer cedar trees out of their flower garden. Although I understood her suggestion as being a good start for my project, I don't really like Cedar trees. I like the wood after its been planed. I like the smell of the wood, but as far as the actual tree... its not much to look at if you ask me.

I wavered back and fourth on the idea of transplanting them. Even though I don't really like the looks of cedar,  I just hate to pass up free trees. "Surely I could fit them in somewhere" I thought.

As I was digging my holes for my new Cedars, I drifted back into images from my childhood. I use to play in the woods all the time as a child. My brother and I built our own little village out there. We moved fallen trees to create forts and collected stones to use as a work stations (for mud pies). But many times I found myself out in the woods alone with no one to play with me. I didn't like playing village with out any "villagers" so I would pretend that some of the trees were people. Specifically there was this super large tree. (I'm unsure of the variety).  I would pretend that he was an old wise man (like a chief). He was a good strong man that looked after the village. He kept the peace. Then there was this locust tree. He was tall with long spines protruding from his bark. He was always causing a ruckus in the village. The old wise tree didn't like the grumpy Locust....

One day while playing in the village I stumbled upon a small cedar tree.  This little seedling stuck out among the many because it had a strange orange fungus of some sort on its tiny trunk. I loved the little tree and pretended that it was a small child in the village.

Eventually the fungus spread. I dug my small tree up and showed it to my mom. She told me that the fungus would probably eventually kill the little tree. I don't remember if I shared with my mom how sad that news made me but I'm sure she knew as I was determined to save my friend.

I went out to my dads work shop and pealed the fungus off the little tree with his wood carving tool. I planted the little Cedar tree in the wind break row next to the house. I checked on the little tree often.

I drove by  my old childhood home the other day and the once little tree is now a huge towering Cedar!

When I saw my childhood Cedar I  thought "Wow, he has grown into a wise old man"!

So this morning as I planted this little guy,

I thought to myself... "Cedar trees are in my roots".  I laughed at the epiphany.