call and response

Everything is connected. Embrace it.

A few weeks ago, my friend told me that I showed up in her dream and told her, “Be careful because everything is connected.” I laughed when I heard this story because it sounded exactly like something I might say in the real world.

This past week, I have been thinking about this statement and what it means, especially after the oak tree has fallen on our petite terrace, followed by a spontaneous haircut.

It was a long and stressful week after days of helping Frido clear up the yard. The initial task was mainly focused on rescuing some of the smaller trees and brushes underneath the fallen oak. Some of the native plants we just added to the ground this Fall were small enough to avoid the direct hit of the large oak trunks. Some other medium-sized native trees that have been around for a while needed our immediate attention. Frido cut off a lot of debris with a brand-new electronic chainsaw we had just purchased. Then, we needed to start shredding all of the voluminous oak crowns because our land was just not big enough to hold all of the fallen parts. Frido went back to the hardware store to purchase a shredder that could take in 3” diameter branches and transform them into mulch.

Needless to say, it has been a lot of physical work and sensory processing. (Those machines are NOT designed to be a whisper when they are running…)

At the end of the week, after I navigated through all of the moving parts, literally and metaphorically, my haircut appointment was coming up. Without having a lot of bandwidth to think through during the week, I showed up at the appointment and told the stylist, whom I just met, that I was ready for short hair.

Of course. It was just hair and could grow back, so it was not the end of the world if I ended up not liking a new haircut. But as I saw my hair fall off while scissors zig-zagged around my head, it felt so true in my body, and the feeling surprised me. The haircut took us about 45 minutes, and I thought of the tree that fell and all of the branches we had so far cleared up. I thought of seeing the fallen tree from the top of the slope and the grief I felt. Then I saw myself walking down the stairs along the slope, seeing the fallen tree with the changing perspectives, and landing on the terrace where the top of the fallen tree landed and where our clearing started. As I followed the train of thought and stepped onto the terrace, the grief was leaving my body, and a new sensation of receiving the fallen oak emerged, like catching a toddler that stumbled off the low staircase. I caught the tree with the same gentle and steady arms I grew to embrace as a mom.

I think of a call-and-response song I was recently learning in a circle. During the song, the work is not to repeat the exact same phrase and tune after one another but to respond when called by a leader and for the group’s response to become a new call to trigger the next set. Together, the song evolves and grows instead of staying still.

When the oak fell, we couldn’t stop it from falling, but we were there to hold and embrace the fallen tree. There was a call, and we responded. Our response was to clear the branches by shredding and mulching them because we couldn’t imagine the tree being taken away from where it stood. Therefore, this action would trigger a new call from us to the land. And somewhere in between, I transformed from someone with long hair who stood on top of the slope and felt grief and helplessness into someone else with short hair who learned how to use a shredder. We still have a long way to go with clearing the oak, but I feel grounded about taking that as a process of continuous growth and evolution.

If I showed up in my friend’s dream again, I don’t want to tell her, “Be careful because everything is connected.” Instead, I hope I would say, “Everything is connected. Let’s embrace it together.” And I hope I will show up with my very short hair, ready to call and to respond.