River of Souls: From Grounded-ness to the Stars

Kate Heiber-Cobb

This piece is to honor that incredible journey of birth, life, and death. Many souls have gone up to the stars in the last year and a half around the world. We honor and recognize all those souls. This art piece is made with small tree trunks, grape vines, curly willow branches, blue silk and various plants and herbs woven into the structure. There is a bottom border of beads representing lives lost. She will rest against a dead tree snag behind the gravesite of a close friend. A tree snag has wonderful symbolism of a being supposedly dead but who still serves so many functions of life in our great world and eco-system.

• A Place to Live—Many animals, including birds, bats, squirrels and raccoons make nests in hollow cavities and crevices in standing deadwood.
• A Food Source—By attracting insects, mosses, lichens and fungi, deadwood becomes a gourmet restaurant for wildlife looking for a snack.
• A "Crow's Nest"—Higher branches of snags serve as excellent look-outs from which wildlife such as raptors spot potential prey.
• A Hiding Place—The nooks and crannies of deadwood are put to good use by squirrels and other wildlife looking to store food.
• A Soil Refresher—Mosses, lichens and fungi all grow on snags and aid in the return of vital nutrients to the soil through the nitrogen cycle. Decaying logs on the forest floor also act as "nurse logs" for new seedlings.

Taost philosophy states that change is successful when both "the great rooted tree by the flowing river" are combined. During times of change it is necessary to incorporate the qualities of quietude (the great rooted tree) with activity (the flowing river).

Kate Heiber-Cobb is the Founder of the Madison Area Permaculture Guild and has been a community leader around those ethics and principles. She owns a small business for that and the teaching she does through Braiding Wisdom. Braiding Wisdom has done Women & Nature Retreats and other classes and circles over the last 5 years. She is an avid gardener, growing both food and medicine for herself and all the birds and critters in the yard she shares with her husband of 44 years. She is Nature Photographer, Grief Specialist and Coach, and leads ritual circles, does land healing and officiates weddings. She's an enraptured artist and crafter. Her challenge is always to gather the skills to make the vision a reality. That's the magic. That is the emergent process that is a huge part of her thinking and her life. Kate loves teaching and learning. She is fascinated with patterns and the human psyche. She is from a very large family and a large community of people and is blessed to be alive and trying new things whenever possible. She loves to travel and be in the wild when she can.