The traumas of a tree’s life are visible on the surface, as knots form and bark curls around to protect and restore the damaged places.
How might you treat those around you differently if you could read their life stories in their skin?
4 thoughts on “Knotted Bark”
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Maybe we can read stories in each others’ skins. Maybe we only need to learn how to read.
All of us have these knots, and ideally would treat others with all the compassion that we ourselves hope for and need. Yet it is not a matter of giving to get back. The gift, the transformation, comes purely from the giving. When we see from our hearts everything changes.
The assignment is to love one another. This is not always easy. I’m uncertain whether visual cues to another person’s life circumstances would make the assignment any easier.
“I’m like one of those Japanese bowls.
I was made long ago.
I have some cracks in me.
they have been filled with gold.
That’s what they used back then
When they had a bowl to mend.
They did not hide the cracks.
They let them shine instead.”
Peter Mayer