Parables from the Tree of Life

By Pat S. Hilger

Parables from the Tree of Life depicts to us how nature often shows us the way. The story (somewhat autobiographical) follows a little girl growing up to become a young woman, learning spiritual lessons from reflections of the trees and with direction of her spiritual guide within. The book constitutes a narrative between the girl and the tree of life as she encounters the many trials and tribulations and occasionally triumphs in life, growing up in a large family in a culturally diverse setting.

The 'tree of life' is the English name for arborvitae. The trees cover the Door County Wisconsin shoreline for many miles. They are not indigenous to North America, but were brought to us by sailors who made tea from their leaves to prevent scurvy. Thus they were truly named 'tree of life'. The story starts with the young girl growing up in central Illinois with frequent visits to North eastern Wisconsin.

With a unique photograph of the adaptation of trees with each chapter coupled with the wisdom of the spirit, this book presents an inspirational and encouraging portrayal of contending with the many vicissitudes of life. The book is especially directed to those who live with depression and other forms of chronic pain, bravely keeping a smile on their faces and battling on with honest questioning and attempted integrity in life's situations.

These stories show the girl encountering a number of religions and peoples, all the while striving to find a true course. Scars, and breaks and various anomalies of tree growth are viewed through the eyes of the spirit as positive and educational, though rarely easily acquired.

This little book can help people on their life journey just as this little girl found her way from a young child into womanhood,

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477281000

Pat S. Hilger

Pat has excelled in several areas of the arts. As a first grader her work was shown at the newly built Krannert Center on the University of Illinois campus. She began dance at the age of 5 ½ and was on toe shoes at 7. She continued to dance until her father took up ice skating in the winter of 1961. She went on to pass all but two figure skating test towards a gold metal in the USFA. She also took ice dancing tests with her father. She worked three jobs at the age of 16, while continuing to skate and make most of her own clothes, draw and do pottery. Pat had undiagnosed major depression for the majority of her life. She wanted to write a book that would inspire others who face similar issues. At around 50 she hit a wall and was not able to maintain her smiling face. Most people who know her, would never believe she had severe depression. She was always able to keep a happy disposition, like many of her fellow depressives. Pat lives with her husband and youngest son in Wisconsin. She earned a B.S. in Organizational Behavior and a M.S. in Business. She has been working on this book off and on since 1992, both in writing and taking many photographs where she summers in Door County, Wisconsin. She has two daughters from her first marriage and two sons from her second. She spends her time being creative and trying new things. She engages in a variety of artistic pursuits. She says it keeps her going. She also is a grandmother for three girls, who moved to other states in the last year. Her third marriage has been a happy one, although her husband is on two waiting lists for a liver transplant, which keeps her constantly looking for ways to make his quality of life better.

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© 2012 by Pat S Hilger

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/12/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-8101-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-8100-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012919600

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

PROLOGUE

I.

SCARS

II.

DANCING

III.

THE PROJECT

IV.

DIFFERENCES

EPILOGUE

Prologue

I have always had a love for trees. In fact, I took great comfort in being around trees, being in them, and in looking at them. I grew up in the Central Illinois, the third child out of six. I was always a loner. My two older sisters liked to hang out together. My oldest sister is seven years older than I am so we really did not have much in common. When my first younger brother was born, I was already three. My dad was so excited to have a son that he and my mother decided to have another baby right away. Unfortunately (to their minds), my mother had another girl almost exactly one year later. It took another six years for my mother to deliver the final child, a boy. That made my family consist of the ‘big kids’ and the ‘little kids’ and me, ‘Patsy’, a.k.a. ‘Patty’ and ‘Patty Baby’.

I am not saying I liked it all the time, but for the most part, I found my own company and that of trees to be all I needed and wanted. I discovered the art of tree-climbing at seven. The house we moved to when I was five did not have any large trees. The story was that it used to be an area of quicksand, although it should have been called ‘quick clay’. When the developers decided to make the subdivision, they brought in tons of dirt. The developers were said to have bulldozed everything and then put the black dirt on top. I do not know if this is fact or fiction. It is just what I remember as a child growing up in Champaign.

When we moved from John Street to Western Avenue, all the houses were new. I had to ride my bike several blocks to get to the ‘old neighborhood’. The old neighborhood had beautiful stately old oak trees that made the bicycle ride quite magical. It was like going through a forest tunnel. The trees were so large that their branches touched each other. It was always several degrees cooler on the streets with the big oaks than in my neighborhood. When I was old enough to venture out on my own, I found ‘The Park’. It was not that large, but it had the best trees for climbing. I would pull a picnic table over to the tree I wanted to climb, and then use it to get to the first strong branch that could support me. My goal was always to climb as high as I could without doing something risky. I feared taking risks. I hated the idea of falling and breaking something, or killing myself. The idea of calling attention to myself especially made me ill.

I spent most of my summer vacation either at the park or up in Door County, Wisconsin. If you have never been to ‘DC’ you are missing one of the truly breath-taking places in the United States. In addition, if you love trees, it is a veritable heaven on earth.

Being a loner, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out things for myself. I didn’t ask many questions so I had a difficult time understanding many of the things other people just took for granted. My dad’s mother was a devout Roman Catholic who attended church every day. My grandfather was not a churchgoer and I think my grandmother felt the need to make up for that. I always thought she was one of the meanest people I would ever know. Life’s experiences taught me that there were many more people meaner than Grandma.

I could not understand how you could go to church every day and still be mean. I understood that everyone had their mean moments, but a daily churchgoer ought to be able to be nicer. This made me suspicious. Something seemed out of whack. Supposedly, to be a better person, all I needed to do was go to church and pray to God for help. But did I need to pray in a church? Why did God only respond to prayer during a mass? But I knew that couldn’t be entirely true. I knew my nightly prayers were often heard and got results.

If God is everywhere, I thought, why do I need a church to pray in? I asked this of the nuns at the grade school I attended. They told me it was up to the Pope to understand God’s Will, not the rest of us. I thought, how will I ever know what to do? Am I to understand that I was put on this earth to do what everyone else does? I could not imagine that that was right. But I learned quickly that my comments were not appreciated. In short order, I learned I was better off keeping my mouth shut.

Nevertheless, I tried to talk to the mothers of some of my neighborhood friends. The neighborhood was full of University of Illinois college professors. They were smart so one of them, I reasoned, should be able to make sense out of things. But this, too, did not work. There were as many religions represented in my neighbors as there are religions. I know this as a good thing now, but at that time, it was confusing. No one was effectively able to clarify things for me. Most of them did not even want to talk about religion.

I had one neighbor who attended our church and who was the kindest, sweetest mother in the block. She only had nice things to say about everyone. She and my mother were friends. For years they took walks together almost every day. I never understood that friendship. Mrs. Johnson had four children and a husband who worked many hours and ran a tight ship at home. Her youngest child was in my grade in school. I did not really enjoy Julie’s company as much as I liked being around Mrs. Johnson. She was so encouraging and so observant that it was wonderful to be around her. But even she could not answer my questions. So I turned to my own devices.

Oddly enough, in trees, I found answers to many of my questions. It first started out as a ‘knowing’. I would ask a question and then just think. Then the awareness of the answer would come. At first I did not question where the ‘knowing’ came from. I was too young to understand that a knowing had to come from somewhere. I didn’t realize the scientific method told us so. I came to know that adults said you