Imagine Part 6

December 27, 2024

​​​​​Imagine Part 6

As a child, I would often sit in a giant Mimosa tree in the backyard. Though I knew nothing about holy places, thin places, or consecrated ground, it was magical as if in another world— if you stroked the Mimosa’s leaves they would slowly fold up like they were going to sleep. And in the spring, its puffy blossom looked like hundreds of little pink feathers with white tips and an amazing fragrance! You could twirl the blossoms on your face and they softly stroked it. After springtime, the blossoms died, and the tree bore beans well into the Autumn. The green pods hung there swaying in the breeze. 

When I was old enough, I made a little tree house in the Mimosa, where three branches formed a perfect spot for my wooden platform. Having scouted out the neighborhood and the woods, I found no other Mimosa as old and as large as mine. So it was very special to me. In this sacred spot, I did a lot of imagining. 

On my tree house platform, I’d lie on my back looking up into the many branches and the sky above. Writing this reflection, I re-experience the Mimosa tree now— it is living, growing, and changing as I — and in it, I am part of a life that had been living and breathing far longer than I. As I go back to my tree, I feel it, see it, smell it, and hear it. I even taste it. When my three branches grew and spread further apart, I made a new and larger platform. The tree and I were growing together. 

What did my soul child imagine in that tree? He probably imagined a Mimosa tree that grew like in the story of “Jack and the Bean Stalk” with a castle on top. He may have imagined living in that castle and encountering all sorts of strange and wonderful characters— and much pageantry. He may have imagined flying from his platform, around and over his backyard and beyond, and scooping up his dog, Sparkle, to fly with him. But knowing my soul child as I have come to know him lately, I believe more than anything his imagination took him to the clouds and heavens into which he gazed from the tree. As I re-inhabit that little child now, I experience again what he was doing— he was being. 

Spiritual practice: Simply leave yourself; and in your imagination join your soul child in any of her (or his) activities and places of play, wonder, and magic. Be with that child and become them again. Feel the exuberance of the new life within you and of sensing so much for the very first time (again). 

Self-inquiry: If you had to postpone reinhabiting your soul child in the spiritual practice above, do you think you would revisit the exercise? What are your reasons? 

Dear God, 

To be, and to be one with you, I am beyond any happiness I can imagine. I pray to live from that little person who knew more than I about being in your creation and trusting it. Amen