Peg Kerr's Journal

My cousin Jill's Year of Adventure suggestion for me was to take a couple of hours volunteering together to plant some trees with Great River Greening. So, we signed up for a shift, and last Saturday on a beautiful sunny day, the two of us, along with her partner Jack, met in a park in Brooklyn Center.

The volunteer coordinators had the process down to a well-rehearsed presentation, and we three ended up planting three trees in all in the two-hour time slot. The first two were straightforward enough, and third, a Catalpa, had evidently been in the pot too long. The tap root had pushed through the hole in the bottom and grown large enough to embed itself into the plastic. It took a twenty minutes struggle to get it out of the pot.

It was hot by the time we finished up, and I'd exerted myself enough during the struggle with the stubborn tree to be glad to drink down the water I'd brought and sit in the shade a bit. But we enjoyed ourselves, and there are now three new trees in a park in Brooklyn Center, thanks to our efforts. Afterward, we drove to Jack and Jill's house for lunch, where I admired their extensive gardens and patio under the beautiful spreading oak tree.

A day well spent in the outdoors.

Image description: Lower center: head and shoulders of two women and a man, wearing hats, smiling at the camera. Center: The same three people are planting a tree. Overlaid over the tree are the words "Great River Greening."

Tree Planting



Click on the links to see the 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

Thank you for all the messages of support.

I've been playing my Holy Tree playlist (from the Tree Project) and that's been an immense comfort, too.

I love you guys. I really do. My friends list is awesome.

Yesterday was our most important community ritual of the year, put on by In The Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre: the May Day Parade, with the Tree of Life ceremony at Powderhorn Park afterwards. The weather was gorgeous, so the crowd was huge. (And after the cold, rainy and miserable spring we've had, a sunny day with the temperature at about 65 degrees with little wind felt like not just like 'a nice day' but an expected gift from the gods). I didn't take pictures this year, but simply concentrated on enjoying the parade. The girls have been too busy this year (what with karate, Girl Scouts and National History Day) to participate in the workshops where people make their costumes and floats, so they didn't march in the parade. We were at the corner of 34th Street and Bloomington Avenue, where the parade turns to go into Powderhorn Park.

Afterwards, we gathered with a group of friends on the southeast side of the lake for a picnic. The drum jam set up right next to us, perhaps inevitably, but they were a small group at first, and so it didn't make conversation impossible. Fiona went to watch the Tree of Life ceremony at the end of the lake, but Delia and I decided to stay with the rest of the picnic group and lounged and ate the potluck offerings. The Tree of Life ceremony was late getting started, but we kept an eye on it from afar. When the horns started sounding, signaling it was time for the Sun to row across the lake to bring the Tree of Life awake, I sat up and started watching more closely.

The progress of the rowers was slow (the wind is inevitably against the rowers each year, and the Sun acts as a giant sail, always slowing them down). As the floatilla kept doggedly battling their way across toward the opposite shore, I felt a lump start up in my throat, and I drifted over to the edge of the lake to lean against a tree.

Oh, how often in this past very hard winter have I longed for the return of the sun! I thought of the struggles with the layoff, when fears and doubts seemed so ascendent. I thought of all the dark days, when the depression seemed so crushing, how I kept playing The Mountain Goats' song "This Year" ("I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.") I thought of how hard I had tried to see the Holy Tree inside of myself, and the inspiration of the Tree Project, of all the trees in pictures and gifts that had been sent to me by all of you, to give me hope.

Now tears were running down my face in earnest. The horns continued to sound, a wild clarion call ringing above the roars and cheers and clapping of the assembled crowd. Finally, FINALLY, the sun landed on shore, the sunrunners dressed in colors of flame, their banners streaming out behind them, tore down the hill to greet and honor it, and the Tree of Life rose and towered above the crowd, spreading Her arms wide to greet the spring, to greet the day, to bestow on us all Her blessing. To my surprise, then the Tree turned away from the crowd on blanket hill and spread Her arms toward the lake, toward me, as if to say, yes, I see you. Yes, I am here, and I cried even harder out of sheer happiness. I don't remember the Tree ever turning that way before.

After a few minutes, I managed to pull myself together. I drifted back over to the picnic blankets, pulled out a napkin, and wiped my face dry. Nobody noticed or commented. The drummers drummed on and on, pulsing out the heartbeat of a people, a community. Winter is over, and now it's time to dance.

I pulled a piece of papaya from a tupperware container and ate it. It was delicious. minnehaha B. handed me a lamb sausage hot off the grill, so big and juicy that it was almost too much for the bun it rested in to handle. Fiona came back from the Tree of Life ceremony, flopped down on the blanket, and reached for some chips. Delia wandered off and borrowed a hulahoop and showed off what she can do with those marvelous abs she's developed from karate.

The sun poured down like honey on us as we sat there together, friends and family, listening to the drums, talking together and celebrating the spring.

Read a parade report from naomikritzer here and another from janradder, with pictures, here. More pictures here by neugotik. Picnic reports from dreamshark here and skylarker here. Here's a picture from the parade from barondave; I hope he will post more pictures soon. If you have links to other parade reports or pictures, please leave them in the comments.

( Here are pictures of the Tree and Sun from a previous year )

No doubt more will be added, and various cuts will be rearranged. But it's a great list so far, some of it from my own collection, but much of it built by help from my friends here on LiveJournal. Thank you again to all of you who have sent me music:

[Song name] - [Artist]
[Album]

( Here's the list )

Friends list? Could you do me a favor? I would like to enlist your help, if you are willing, in a sort of art project.

Could you please give me a tree?

Here is an excerpt from a previous post I did about a couple of my icons:

and Both of these icons (as well as my default icon) are representations of what I have come to call the Holy Tree. I first became aware of the term by reading Tolkien: he loved trees dearly, and they became central to his mythology, as depicted in The Silmarillion. (In the first manifestation of the world, there was no sunlight or moonlight. Instead, there were the Two Holy Trees, Telperion and Laurelin, from which shone golden and silvery light.)

Telperion and Laurelin, the Trees of Valinor

This idea has mingled in my imagination with my favorite poem of all, Yeat's The Two Trees. (I was introduced to it by Loreena McKennitt, who sang it as a song on her album The Mask and the Mirror.) The poet speaks of a magical tree which grows within the human heart, and contrasts that with a false vision of a blasted, barren tree, which may be seen when demons hold up their bitter glass (a mirror). To me, this poem is about one of the central struggles of my life, and it words it so beautifully. I am too apt to believe the demons who hold up the bitter glass, and show me a vision of a blasted and barren tree. I have been trying to see more clearly the holy tree, which the poet assures me grows within my own heart. The song is also a damn good description of cognitive therapy, one of the best I've ever read. When depression gets its claws into me, my tormentors are, indeed, the "ravens of unresting thought," who shake their ragged wings, alas. The key, the poet says, is to turn the eyes away from the bitter glass, with its false vision of the blasted tree, back to the holy tree within the heart. The first tree icon, highly stylized, I posted because I was considering it as a possible tattoo (it was on the cover of a devotional booklet distributed by my church). I still love the design, but I know it would have to be simplified and I am not sure I will ever do it (the idea of my getting a tattoo does horrify some members of my family). The second tree icon was taken from a watercolor done by Tolkien himself, picturing the Mallorn trees of the Golden Wood (from The Fellowship of the Ring).

Friendslist, I am going on this personal retreat for a number of reasons, one of which is that I need to get a clear image of the Holy Tree, and shake off the image of the blasted tree that has been haunting me.

I would be very grateful, friends list, if you would give me a tree.

Write a poem or a story for me about a tree.

Take a picture of a tree near your home that you know and love and send it to me.

Make me an animated icon of a tree flowering.

Plant a REAL tree (a very small one) in my honor and send me a picture.

Make a (very small) donation to Plant a Tree Today in my honor to help fight global warming. Or any other organization which plants trees. Your local arboretum.

Send me an .mp3 with a song about a tree (something like Claudia Schmidt and Sally Roger's "Tree of Life," which I love. And does anyone have an .mp3 of Michael Johnson singing "Bristlecone Pine"? I know it was on one of the Morning Show Keepers CDs, but we didn't get that one.) It would be even better if you write the song yourself.

Paint a picture of a tree. Do a watercolor or an oil, or just a sketch, or make a pair of tree-shaped earrings out of beads or a tree-shaped pin, and send them to me.

Make an origami tree and send me a picture.

Batik a scarf with a tree on it and send it to me, or just send me a picture.

If you have a sarong with a tree on it, send it to me, or just a picture.

Send me a URL link of a picture of your favorite tree on the internet.

I need thriving trees, blessed trees. Not necessarily beautiful trees, because some of the most wonderful ones in the world are twisty because they are stubborn trees. They can be humble trees. Don't pick the most beautiful trees, but instead the trees that remind you the most of me.

I'm not asking people to spend much money on this--as little as possible, really. You don't have to send an actual object to me. Just a picture will do, and you can simply e-mail that. In some ways, I like the idea of you keeping the tree (actual tree, art object, etc.) that you have made a picture of, because that creates a tie between you and me. So that whenever you see the tree that you have made for me, it will remind you of me. Let me know, if you do send something, whether it is okay with you for me to post a picture of it for others to see. It would be nice if you would let me know what you think is captured in the tree that reminds you of me, or that you hope for me.

I want to compile what I receive--objects or pictures--into some kind of book to look through when the darkest days come.

If you do send something tangible, my address is

Peg Kerr
P.O. Box 2128
Loop Station
Minneapolis, MN 55402

Send emails to pegkerr A T livejournal D O T com. Drop me a comment to let me know if you're sending via email so I can be sure it arrives; I can provide a different email address if there is any problem.

I feel a little diffident asking for this, but hopeful, too. My friends are creative people, and I hope that this request will spark your creativity, making it as fun for you as it would be healing for me.

I leave on my retreat on March 17. It would be lovely to have something before then (maybe I can compile a book of what I receive while on retreat) but if you send something later, that's cool, too. Thank you to those of you who are willing to do this for me.

Edited to add: Also: do you have suggestions for a trees-themed playlist? I imagine I have a number of songs already, and some of you have given me more. Other songs?

Edited to add: Oh, yeah, and not to be picky or anything, but there's one thing I'd definitely nix. If you've been reading this journal awhile, you probably already know this, but please don't send me a copy of Silverstein's The Giving Tree. (If you want to comment on this, please do it on the post linked in the previous sentence.)