Sakura Tree in Winter

Dreamt - 5/3/2016

            I was in Japan, or a place mirroring it. I was traveling afoot, looking for something, and I journeyed the entire night, through mountain forests. In the dark I lost my way, and now advanced a pathless wilderness, pushing aside boughs, wary of tripping over logs, rocks, snow. A silvering of the darkness heralded the coming of dawn. Billows of fog drifted. It was winter and most boughs were bare. None of the many streams had frozen though.

            I waded waters up to my knees, even to my chest. I wasn't cold however. The forest was pristine, so quiet the sloshing waters may have been the only sound. The gold aura of dawn cleared the sky, awakening with faint blue.

            It was when I was crossing a wide river, the waters above my knees, that I saw the tree. It rose from the snowdrift shores, it's bark white granite-silver. All its prodigious boughs and branches were laden with soft white-pink blossoms. Next to and behind it, were other trees, darker barked, some pale akin to birch. All their foliage was lost, save the pines. Behind the Sakura was a snow sheathed bank. Through the forest, above, were slivers of a faint, beautiful light.

            In the breeze Sakura petals fell like snowflakes. Then I realized the river was absolutely covered with white-pink petals, and the waters so peaceful they hardly moved. Whenever the breeze caressed the forest, the Sakura boughs swayed gently, rustling with whispers, and blossoms fluttered, cascading, dappling the air. The tree was alive.

            The first gold rays of dawn washed over the topmost boughs. I sensed wisdom here. This was the oldest Sakura, perhaps the first of all cherry trees; yet it was youthful, timeless. An ineffable power emanated, a hint of something wondrous beyond this world. This power had made it bloom in the midst of winter. Truly, I loved this tree. There was divinity in it; a feminine presence; a goddess, caring, and beckoning closer.

            Merely by standing in the river before the Sakura tree, everything began to make sense. All my sorrows, fears, mortality, suffering, were being soothed away. I needed to know more; and I understood the goddess wanted to give her healing and wisdom to me, to everyone.