The Breadth of a Tree
Poems, Letters, and Dreams
by
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Although you did not come into this world through my body, we are eternally woven together by a fate that placed us in our own world; one in which I became your mother and you my child. This perfect relationship came into being by a sweeping wind produced in the bowels of something holy and was carried on the breath of prayers and meditations - whispered into birth through our own Mandala Shambhala. Our togetherness was translated by something divine - something that knew that we, by the blood of my brother, shared a history, shared a spiritual past, share a present and share a future. You are my brother’s son; his blood runs through your veins - our incarnate connection depicting its own layers of life, which began long, long ago - our mutuality detailing our own history that folded quietly into the present then into the future - ur timeless kinship respiring through our blood and our bodies that create an eternal affinity. I never wanted to have children. I was always afraid that they would be like me – a being washed in sadness and heartache that has followed her through a million lifetimes. But somehow, when the opportunity came to take you in, to remove you from the hands of the dark matriarch whose body you did come through, the one ironically brave enough to have children, I did not hesitate. She could not see you clearly. She could not translate your world enough to be able to see the beauty in the detail of your being, of your life. I see it - I see you clearly – I see your beauty, I always have and always will. We have both witnessed and created the details of our lives together, using our history to frame our present and to diagram our future. We have a place in this world. We are the whole and its parts; we are the translators and the translated. We have been composed by a past that no one can “un-compose.” We are a moving force, a holy breath, the focus of the meditation of a god. We are life itself. You and I Jamel - our time on this earth layered and folded together throughout all of these years, embraced by the old and the new and wrapped up by the past, the present and the future. We stand before one another and like the Mandala Shambhala, we depict a world - our kinship perfect and immortal, our souls eternally woven together, our lives beautifully layered and painted with love. You and I Jamel. You and I.
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About the Book
The Breadth of a Tree is about an enduring search for spiritual freedom. First-time author I. Peaches Gillette courageously steps out into the world and allows herself to be seen through her profound and compassionate writing. This collection of poetry, letters, and transcriptions of dreams explores a wide range of emotions. It is a loving disclosure of deeply personal events that shaped the heart and soul of who Peaches has come to be. The Breadth of a Tree is about life and the thoughts, feelings, and words that provide a way to share that life with others.
About the Author
Peaches is the youngest of nine children born to Elizabeth Mae Hudson who, in 1942, left behind the severe oppression of the rural South and sought to create a better life in the North with her firstborn, then six years old. Peaches reflects on the lessons of love, faith, and courage she learned from her mother. Peaches draws on her experiences growing up in Park Slope, Brooklyn, during the sixties, seventies, and eighties. Her writing articulates a world of overt racism and other elements of the social and political upheaval of the times. She also touches on thirty-five years of experience as an arts-and-curriculum–enrichment educator for children in prekindergarten through middle school and moves into her present-day work as a chaplain to war veterans and incarcerated women.