Elizabeth Arnold’s story of the heart-shaped piece of bark from Baba’s Tree is told in the film Tree of Fire: A Story of Love Resilience, a documentary about Baba’s Tree.
I was giving tours under the tree. For several days I kept noticing these pieces of bark that had fallen off the tree. They were heart shaped and sometimes they would fall while people were under the tree.
I would see the heart shape and I would say, “Oh, here is a heart shaped bark. Take it with you.” People loved it. It was fun.
Then one day, a very dear friend of mine came to Meher Mount. She wanted to go under the tree. She explained that she wanted to pray for a friend of hers. She went under the tree.
She was sitting on a bench, and I thought, “Well, she’ll really enjoy just hearing about this, the heart shaped bark that’s falling off the tree.” I’m telling her how sometimes they just fall right off the tree, and it’s a heart shape.
Yes, you’re probably guessing – that’s exactly what happened. A piece of bark fell right in between the two of us. I picked it up and I looked at it. On examination, it was a perfect heart shape.
I handed it to her and said, “Take this bark to your friend and tell her it is from Baba’s Tree.” So, she did.
She had explained to me that the reason her friend was very troubled was that her friend’s daughter was in the hospital with cancer. She was only 30 years old. The disease was pretty far along, and there was a big concern. And at 30 years old, she had young children. It was very troubling to her mother.
So, my friend gave the mother the heart-shaped piece of bark. And what neither of us knew at the time, as we found out later, was that the mother, her friend, took the bark to her daughter in the hospital.
This was incredibly significant because unbeknownst to us, the daughter was a Meher Baba lover. The mother did not understand and wanted nothing to do with it. She couldn’t conceive of it.
Now here she is going to the hospital to visit her daughter, taking her the piece of bark, and showing it to her. “This came from Baba’s Tree. It fell in front of my friend. It’s a heart shape. This is for you.”
There had been a very severe rift in their relationship at the time. They weren’t even talking. So that rift was mended.
And then in a short time, we also heard that the daughter’s cancer went into remission. That again is the power of the tree.
The daughter didn’t even come to visit the tree. She was just in love with Meher Baba. And that connection at a distance made it to her in the hospital. Baba’s Tree. A piece of bark went to her in her hospital bed where she really needed it.
~Elizabeth Arnold, Resident Caretaker 2002-2010
