Permitting the Tree its Treeness

Today as you go about your life, be aware of the people, places, and things that you are seeing. Awareness in and of itself will elevate your spirits.

I remember so clearly when I began to really see things, not simply look at them and label them as "tree," "pretty." "yellow," or any of the thousands of labels we all have. Of course, my mind is not completely still, but it is a whole lot better at simply apprehending without labeling and judging than it previously was.

That moment that I remember so clearly took place in the large, grassy area on the upper campus of Cal State Long Beach. I had just attended Dr. Francisco Peccorini's metaphysics class. He was big on "Being." As when I read the trippy writings of Martin Heidegger on time and being, I also felt a little stoned after leaving Dr. Peccorini's class.

To take in this mind-expanding lecture, I sat and simply looked at a tree, without labeling it "tree" or "beautiful" or "big" or "sun-dappled." I simply saw it as a manifestation of Being. Something definitely shifted. Everything appeared lighter, brighter, and infused with meaning.

A few years later, Dr. Peccorini was assassinated on his way to a political rally in San Salvador. In my opinion, his metaphysics and spirituality did not mesh with his politics. The former was loving and embracing, while the latter was elitist and exclusionary. Of Italian heritage, Dr. Peccorini had been born to a wealthy family in El Salvador. That had shaped his politics.

Still, I remembered Dr. Peccorini for the catalyst he had been in my own spiritual development. And for this I am eternally grateful.

To commemorate his life and what he had meant to me, I wrote the following poem for his memorial service. For inspiration, I recalled those moments of awareness while truly seeing a tree.


For Dr. Francisco Peccorini, Assassinated in San Salvador,

March 15, 1989




How fondly I remember metaphysics with you!


How taken I was with your god,


an ocean to drown in without regrets,


a shy sender quietly bestowing meaning on things


which otherwise would cease to exist.

After your lectures, I would sit alone


and gaze at an acacia in the courtyard,


sinking my self into it,


its green a summons to life


like the water which bathes potentiality in the womb.


No internal dialogue was necessary


to give these moments sense.


It was great plenty to permit the tree its treeness,


to allow my self the vast, unarticulated home

of space and time in which to grow.






Perhaps in death


we awaken to the dreams of this life


given width, height, depth and breath.


Instead of the inebriation of abstract thought,


we touch, smell and taste


those things which before were only felt


in the bright recesses of the mind,


in the dark expanses of the soul.


I think of you in death encountering Being head on,


without words to erect barriers,


without the world to cloud your vision.