Writing in Community & the Tree of Happiness
Dear friends,
Spring is really getting going here (in a cold, whiplash Northeast sort of way). The forsythia is bombastically blooming, the tulips have buds, and while we had two snowy mornings last week, it melted quickly.
(with one of my young people at the Smith bulb show)
I keep moving, quietly but determinedly, in my practice of cultivating transgressive joy. One piece of that larger whole is wanting to write with folks, in person, in a free and open space. Starting in May, fellow poets Melissa Dickey and Liz Bergman Falco will be co-hosting The Morning Shift, an open writing space on Saturday mornings at Looky Here in Greenfield.
One of my favorite moments of transgressive joy recently was an incredible reading from my friend and mentor Tiana Clark for her new poetry collection, Scorched Earth. If you missed it, luckily you can still see the reading (and the awe-inspiring convo with Ocean Vuong afterwards). I’m also loving this poem by Caroline Bird (and you can hear the poet read it)
With my own writing, I’m thinking a lot these days (and Tiana talked about this at her reading, also!) about what I want to be paying attention to for the next handful of years. If one is lucky enough to have one’s work published, and read, then whatever you’ve written is what you will continue to be thinking and talking about for years to come. So what is that, for me?
I’ve been working on some new pieces incorporating the herbal knowledge I’ve learned in my years of studying western folk herbalism, and thought I’d share a little peak here about one of my absolute favorite tress, the Tree of Happiness - the mimosa.
(not joking about it being one of my favorites, I literally have a mimosa tattoo)
Deep pink fading to light pink, with gold at the tips. To stand beneath a mimosa tree in bloom and look up is to look into a gentle sunset, a golden dawn, a fairy kingdom. As a child, I had a mimosa tree in my backyard. I used to go out and pick up the blossoms that had recently fallen onto the ground, gathering as many as I could find, and then I would brush their silky soft fronds all over my face–cheeks, lips, eyelids. I had no idea, as a sad and lonely ten year old, that this was also known as the tree of happiness.
One of my herbal teachers says that you can tell how important a plant is to humans by how many different names it has. The more names it goes by, the more beloved the plant. What I grew up calling mimosa is also known as Persian Silk Tree, Chinese Silk Tree, He Huan Hua and He Huan Pi when used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and most beautifully (to me), The Tree of Happiness.
The scientific name of Mimosa is Albizia julibrissin–“Albizia” for Filippo degli Albizzia, an Italian naturalist who introduced the tree to Italy in the 18th century, and “julibrissin” for the Persian word “gul-ebruschin,” which means “floss silk” and describes the Mimosa’s stunning and unusual flowers. The Mimosa originated in Iran (hence the Persian name), migrated to China, Korea, and other parts of southeast Asia, then was brought to Europe.
I did not know, standing in my parent’s backyard in Charleston, South Carolina in the 1990s, that the first Mimosa tree in the US was planted in the botanical gardens of French botanist Andre Michaux in 1785, in Charleston. By the 1990s, as I took a break from reading the short stories of Edgar Allen Poe to walk out to my backyard mimosa tree, the mimosa had vigorously spread throughout the southeast US. It was planted intentionally for its prolific growth, fern like leaves, and gorgeous flowers that attract bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies. From there, it spread itself so widely that it is now considered an invasive species, and grows not only in gardens but also abandoned lots, fields, and roadsides.
I hope that you have your own moments of determined joy and connection. And if you’re a local, I hope to see you at The Morning Shift! A few other bits and bobs: I’ll be teaching a workshop about chapbooks at the upcoming MassPoetry Fest on May 31, and I have a poem out in MER.
Til soon,
Adrie
