Last Friday, a lucky 13th, I attended my 61st high school reunion. For that gathering I produced a book, 49ers Roar: Stories of Leo High School Classmates, with a lion on the cover. For several weeks up to that meeting I lived in both 1949 and 2010, and in both Indiana and Illinois.
After meeting my Leo classmates in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, I walked familiar paths at my undergrad school, Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, and then myriad trails at my grad school, Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
Over a half-century ago, for four years, I regularly exited the Indiana University Social Science Building to head for the library. Soon I was in a labyrinth of several acres of trees. I revisited that experience last Sunday. For the first time in that total immersion in the woods, I heard a tree singing. Another sang, until there was a chorus. “A good tree,” I heard from all directions, “is the life-blood and master spirit of a precious forest.”
An opening in the forest appeared and revealed the library building. Then, I got close enough to reread the inspiring portal inscription, “A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit.” One transformative book I read there was Carl Jung, The Undiscovered Self, which taught me to listen to interior voices. Finally, I could hear within myself previously undiscovered tree harmonics.
