There are many forms of meditative peace. For me, long ago it was a stoic form of peace I practiced. It was one of acceptance, not blindness. Opening ones eyes when we have made ourselves blind by choice is a painful experience. Realizing that we had looked at certain situations, events, things, and people through the lense of their potential rather than their current reality can shake your world. Knowing what something could be is a good thing, and trying to bring it to fruition is also a good thing. It takes work though, and we must always be aware of what we are working with. If we don’t we get ahead of ourselves and neglect aspects of the process which are crucial for success.
You can sometimes, with extra care, make certain trees which have disease bloom for a season. You can continually do this each season and eventually forget its underlying problems. The care you give becomes habit, and the tree seems okay on the outside, but what of it’s underlying disease? Have you done what is necessary to lead it to a full recovery?
If not, all it will take is a single strange season, or a change in its soil or even its surroundings may bring that disease to the forefront again. It could be something as simple as letting a few weeds or blackberries take root next to it. Something as simple as moving some surrounding shade, or having a different tree take root near it. Our tried and true seasonal care becomes useless.
Stoic acceptance will allow you to flow with the loss of your tree. It will allow you to make peace with the fact that you didn’t pay enough attention to the underlying disease. It also will force you to accept that you have failed in what you should have done because you blinded yourself. It will look at that disease, it will note the soil, the weeds, the altered overall habitat that lead to the disease you’d not been paying enough attention to, and it will say “You should have tended to these things before they destroyed your tree.” You will accept the tree’s death, mourn, and move on with a lesson learned.
I never was good at the mourning part. I instead have always shoved it way down inside. I’m trying to learn to mourn for the dead. I’m trying to accept that they must be mourned if they died, or worse yet… if the tree still lives, but is beyond being brought back to full health, so you must only mourn the loss of it’s blooming again. You must live with the knowledge that it will never give forth the fruit it once had the potential to bring into the world. You must also accept that if you’d instead of blinding yourself and not aiming to immediately confront the root disease, it never, not even once bloomed and gave forth the fruit it had the potential to bring forth. You failed the tree, the tree fails to be what it should have been. All these things must be accepted.
Finding my way back to this mentality, this form of 24/7 meditation is the goal, and I’m doing it quickly. Learning to mourn as part of the process is new however. That will take some work.
Three weeks ago a tree died. 5/4/2025 to be exact. It was a tree I hadn’t visited in many years, but one I shared shade with for many years as well. On the same day another tree, which I once cared for showed that I had neglected it’s root disease so horribly that it was possibly beyond repair. It had bloomed each year, gave forth fruit which certain lucky people enjoyed and appreciated.
This year, it did not bloom as well, it’s leaves seemed withered, and the fruit, if it comes at all will not be as it should be. The underlying disease, it holds sway. I’m accepting, and I am mourning. So many trees, five of my sturdiest completely gone in 2025. One each month. This sloth is meditating. It is not seeking joy, it is seeking balance through acceptance. It will keep it’s eyes open to reality, and it will accept that reality.
If you are into it you can get this Stoic Meditation Sloth as a Vinyl sticker, and even as a T-shirt.