Jean Gendreau

We start the fire before the sun rises, when the sky is white. There are flurries on the wind. It’s cold enough for mittens. The fire crackles, and the clear maple sap begins to steam. If I stand close, the fire scorches my skin. A few feet away, I need to zip up my jacket and pull down my hat.
It’s the wind. All around me the trees are moving. Aspens dance from their ankles to their fingertips.  Pine and balsam boughs whisper and sigh. The sap starts bubbling. Gusts blow sweet steam out through the woods to where the sun is rising over Farm Lake. 
Nuthatches, pine siskins, chickadees, and purple finches chitter and flutter.  Three geese honk as they clear the treetops. Bobbing at the very top of a spindly aspen, a robin sings comfort to me.
The trees bend when they can, leaning against the wind, getting tougher. Some trees have snapped. Their pale, jagged stumps dot the woods. Others learn to persist, even in relentless wind.  On the harsh shores of Scotland and on Lake Superior’s beaches, slim young trees grow strong and hard, leaning into the wind as gnarly warriors. 
Yet even the toughest tree dies without its thin places – fine roots hiding in darkness, twigs and thin leaves bouncing high in the light.
Thin membranes feed life. Without the placenta’s fine capillaries, an embryo dies. Without the lung’s impossibly tender membranes, strong animals die.  
It’s simple. There must be thin places, boundaries where one thing passes through and enters a new state. Light streams down and through thin leaves. Water wets dirt to feed thin roots and make sap.
I only want to be a crusty old warrior tree. Thick bark feels strong. Warriors stand tough against harsh force. It’s too easy to shred seedlings, soft leaves and thin white roots.  But these are the exact places where outside meets inside, where other meets me. 
I cannot breathe without my thin places. I cannot stop looking up to where the finest twigs brush the sky. I need to smell the sugar as steam rolls off the boiling sap. I must hear the wind whiffling through pine boughs. I need to know that something is crossing over.
Roots stay hidden in earth. Darkness feels safe. Dirt shelters the fine threads. Some roots lie against an old boulder that holds warmth. 
There’s no shame in being protected by dirt. A root must be fine enough to absorb water. For life’s sake, these fine membranes must take holy refuge in darkness. 
Branches, twigs, and leaves are crazy brave. They are true to light and air. Even though brutal sunlight can kill, and terrible winds can break branches, aspen leaves shimmer and dance. The sound of wind tells of heaven’s vast boundaries. At dawn, a robin singing high against the sky tells me of safety.
Light calls and maple sap rises.  The clear sap in the boiling tray warms, starts to bubble, jumps into the air as steam. What’s left behind is sweetness. 
Who knew that a lithe dancing tree can harden into a gnarly warrior?  Who believed in the magic of tiny roots and twigs?
This is what I want to tell you. Each of us must drink from the earth and feel the sun on our thin places. And without fine roots and fragile leaves, we die.  Even though the trunk must toughen, somehow spirit must be able to move from rain to roots and from heaven to leaf. 
For me there’s something even deeper than the blackness where the roots lie safe. And even if a high leaf falls, there is something higher and brighter than the very top of this tree.
The sun rises. At all the thin places, something passes through to become new. Sap boils and steam rises, drifting through the pine and balsam boughs to melt in light.
This is why a robin calls out to me this morning as I sit by the fire. She’s high above the fray, untouchable, safe. She sings of joy and freedom on the other side. Below, all of us in the cold, windy woods look up and smile.