Trees Part 4

July 17, 2026

Lark and I lived in the small town of Concord, Massachusetts when I did my internship in Boston. We rented a little Cape Cod cottage surrounded by tall trees, just one block off the town center.

Our yard and neighborhood were filled with a kind of tree we had never seen in the Deep South. It was the American Yellowwood, which the residents in Concord called the Virgilia, from its Latin name. These trees were tall and graceful, and in late spring and early summer, they were covered with white flowers that hung in clusters like wisteria. Their delicate blossoms carried a distinct and beautiful fragrance. When the petals fell, thousands of them covered the ground like snow.

Those trees and their beautiful blossoms enchanted us. It was a mystery that such a large, sturdy tree bore such delicate flowers. There was something almost redemptive about them— towering strength clothed in tenderness, height bending down in touchable beauty.

When we moved back to Alabama, I brought several little saplings with us that grew underneath our favorite Virgilia in our yard. I planted them in our yard in Alabama. I wanted them to grow. But they did not. On another trip back to Concord, thanks to our dear friend and former landlord, I brought more saplings home from the yard that had once been ours. Out of all of them, only one survived.

Today, that one Virgilia tree stands tall in our backyard. But it has never bloomed.

Every time I walk past it, I remember that special season Lark and I spent in Concord. It was the beginning of our marriage, and in my memory, it has the quality of a dream. I associate that time with so many things like living in the town where Thoreau, Alcott and Emerson seem still alive, —long-awaited springtimes, walks in the town forest with our only child then, a cocker spaniel named Byron, snow and ice skating, the Concord accent, Indian pudding, lobster, Walden Pond, our friend and neighbors who accepted us even with our accents and sometimes because of them— and much more. But one of the most vivid images from that time is the Virgilia tree, with its white flowers adorning the canopy and carpeting the yard like snow.

Sometimes, when I am moving through our yard now, I place my palms against our tree and feel its life. I tap on its trunk and listen for the deep vibration within it. I run my hand along the texture of its bark. Sometimes I lean against it and look up into its green branches swaying in the breeze. And for a moment, I am back in Concord, held by all the memories for which I am still grateful.

Then I made an impossible request of our Virgilia tree.

I ask it to bloom.

It may not be fair to ask a tree to bloom simply because I want to see again, what I once saw long ago. It may not be fair to ask this transplanted tree to carry the full weight of our memory. But I ask anyway. I suppose I do because we human beings are always trying to relive the wonders we have known. We try to transplant them, recreate them, imitate them, or call them back into bloom. I am grateful to this one tree for sticking it out, for refusing to die, for being present in a foreign territory…

It is only human to want to reconstruct our bliss.

This, I believe, is what the ego does. It longs for the bliss it once knew as the soul child, and it tries to return us there. But the ego cannot restore the soul. It can only build facsimiles of our original joy. It can imitate wonder, but it cannot give us wonder. It can remember paradise, but it cannot take us home.

That work belongs to God and the soul.

Though we may never see the white blossoms on our Virgilia tree, I still carry their memory in my soul. I carry their fragrance in my body. I carry the love of that irreplaceable time in our lives. And something tells me that is the real message in the fluffy white blossoms…

For even when our egos cannot bring us back to our bliss, our souls are still being restored by the One True Source of Love. The bloom we seek may not appear on the branch before us. It may be opening gently within us in a memory, a dream, or in a tree.

Spiritual Practice

Is there anything in nature that reminds you of your bliss? If so, can you be with that natural thing for a while to see if it speaks to you, makes an impression on your soul, or reminds you of something placed in your heart at the beginning of it all? 

Inquiry

How does your bliss come to you? 

Prayer

Dear God, 

I pray for my soul to be restored.

Amen