The world’s largest living organism is a huge stand of quaking aspen trees growing on a hillside in central Utah. What looks like 47,000 individual aspen trees covering 106 acres actually is 47,000 “stems” from a single plant. Quaking aspen, already well recognized as the most wide spread tree species in North America, can now take it’s rightful place as an acknowledged giant among giants.

Also by Edwina Peterson Cross

What's In A Name?
Edwina Peterson Cross - Artist
Golden Seed Grove - Aspen
Golden Seed Grove -Elements
Golden Seed Grove - The Piper
Ancient Tree Wisdom
Creative Principles
Twentieth Century Sun Worship
These I Have Loved
Polishing Diamonds
Germanic Tradition Soul Food
Lemurian Poetry Corner
Sandpainting
Ashland Lights
The Tale
The Moonlit Water Garden
Lemurian Women's Dance
Surrealism - A Collection
Beyond the Looking Glass
Bears in The Wood
Narnian Cookbook
Artist Party
Tree Day

The Golden Seed Grove Of Lemuria

Aspen by
Edwina Peterson Cross

At the top of the world
A spirit dwells
Cradled in the hollow hand of winter

She dwells through days of brief bleached whiteness; swathed in silent snow
She dreams through everlasting moon dark nights, scrying ice like crystal

Colors are scarce at the top of winter,
Achromatic . . .
It is a world of white
soundless
and still
Unmoving skies of slate, smoke,
steal; lie heavy with snow
(a sudden shock of sapphire sky
turns the ground from chalk to diamonds
then is gone as quickly as it came)
Evergreens, settled, secluded, winter cautious
surround deepgreen silence
in shades subdued; jade, malachite, moss

Yet, into this still silvered hush
a trace of motion whispers
Haiku brush strokes of ebony ink
inscribe secrets
against pale paper skin
In the briefest breath of a clear chill breeze
bare ivory branches lift above the silent snow
and dance

In a motionless world of white
She dances . . .
Black branded alabaster branches
weaving poems
in the still bone cracking cold
She sways and bends and stretches to the sky
liquid with longing
swept deep in a sweet swirling dream of
green

She dreams of the flush of rising sap
life impulse, vital spark
First felt faintly, gently, in slowly thawing ground
then quickened through the roots, sipped slowly up the trunk
Until at last, the sun warmed earth
sets the sweet green heartsblood free
Flowing, streaming, rushing, rising, soaring
Bursting from branch tips in a surge of joy

Leaves unfold in new spring green
tender green, translucent green
Leaves that slowly open to the soft spring air
taste the music of the greenwood
smell the scintillation of the sun
hear the soft wet scent of dew drops forming
touch the vibrations of the seasons turning
Leaves that tremble . . .
tremble with chlorophyll . . .
tremble with joy . . .
tremble with delight . . .
tremble in ecstacy . . .
Tremble shake shiver quiver shudder quake
twisting with relish on their supple steams

Then with joy,
with delight,
with ecstacy
She lifts her newly luxuriant branches
to a fresh Spring sky
and dances
She rejoices in movement, in greenness, in life
With the deep, sweet abandon of ageless youth
she dances
Renascence

And she will dance the mountains brief bright summer
twisting leaves slicing sun to slivers, dappling shade
Making shadows dance
in parqueted patterns on the ground
Knee deep in emerald feather fern
She swims and sways
in the luminous laughter of the summer wind

Ardent and thirsty in this short season of green
Roots are sent deep
drinking verdant nurture from the mountain mother
Roots are sent wide
unseen fingers linked in extended, enduring family
Sisters, tossing their sylvan hair in separate shafts of sun
are, in the depths, choreographed
Together

She is surrounded by the sounds and the scents of growth
and change,
Circled by the music and fragrance of the world becoming;
the crack of rocks settling in the sun, becoming mountain
the sweet breakdown of leafmold, becoming soil
The buttery, bright warmth of sunshine, becoming chlorophyll
The clear, clean smell of rain and melting snow
laughing, becoming river
seeping, becoming groundwater
rising, becoming fog and mist
and rain again
She stands at the center of becoming;
a filter, a placenta
clarifying water, sunlight, oxygen, earth
Eternal feminine
giving and receiving

Will this delicate, dancing spirit,
grown smooth with summers song
wither and wane
When touched by Autumns first breath of frost?

She will drink that frost like rare ice wine
Sending color burning deep
bright swallowed fire
The strong green heartsblood
will undergo a rite of ancient alchemy
and be will be transformed
suddenly pulsing with a thick new luster
The fluent, graceful dance becomes
enchanted
This soul of the woodland, spirit of motion, trembling essence of joy
Begins an incarnation of glory, of magic, of exultation
In the crisp, vivid air of autumn
she begins her exquisite, elegant dance of
Gold

When the gilded magic has reached a saturation point
and the air just won’t hold another drop
The leaves begin to fall
spinning and swirling in the thin autumn sunlight
reeling toward the ground in a last dervish dance of joy A rain of golden faery wishes . . .
A shower of pirate coins . . .
Individually they are perfect
heart-of-gold, whisper thin and delicately veined
Together they are a spinning spellbound gateway,
primordial, primeval,
into mystery,
into the deep, ancient woodland of the heart
Swirling gold in flickering autumn sunshine
unbinds a haunting yearning
a blunted ache, a wondering wish
the longing for a dream
that we have forgotten how to dream

And when the last leaf has fallen
She stands on a carpet of gold
Contemplating the color of the wind
and the light of an early winter sky

See a spirit of feeling,
of aura, of ambiance, of intuition
Hear a spirit of hope,
when fire takes the forest, she is first to return
first to regenerate, first to regrow
Touch a spirit of roots; deep drawn connections,
powerful, and profoundly strong
Smell a spirit of rich earth, sweet sunshine, pure water, thin bright air
unceasing feminine, accepting and giving once again
Feel a spirit of happiness,
sensitive and sentient;
she shudders with delight
silvers with ecstasy
trembles and quakes with joy

She tastes each season of mountain mother as a gift,
snow, saprise, warmth, gold
She finds their circle pleasing, their cycle sound

All around the circle,
her branches will ask questions
etching dreams and poems against a changing sky
Throughout the cycle,
the wind will whisper music
and the secrets of the stars
Then she will tremble,
she will laugh with joy,
she will lift her arms and

She will Dance

Another Golden Grove poem by Edwina Peterson Cross

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The Golden Seed Grove belongs to all those Lemurians who have planted here.