"I felt like I was breathing new life, new inspiration with every inhalation."
Meher Mount asked for stories or memories of Baba’s Tree, and Perrah Yarborough sent the following poem and her inspiration behind it.
By Perrah Yarborough
That day at Meher Mount in 2007, I felt like I was breathing new life, new inspiration with every inhalation. The phrase ‘every breath a graduation’ came to my mind because it seemed every time I took a breath I was receiving additional acknowledgement — finding new graduations of insight and achievement.
My poem doesn’t mention Meher Mount or Meher Baba, but it is about my experience one afternoon communing with the ancient oak, Baba’s Tree.
BABA’S TREE at Meher Mount. (Photo: Wayne Myers, 2016)
“Every Breath a Graduation”
One cannot arrange the past like a furrowed field,
the scars are not quite so pliable as dirt
nor the wrinkled brain within its hardened case.
But cloaked in clouds and acceptance
one can circle trees, walk with quiet deliberation
round the celebrated oak before slipping beneath its
dewy canopy to hold court with dinosaur branches,
to confront the centuried trunk, and face up
to reptilian certitudes — those parts of one’s psyche
buried under four hundred years of detritus.
~ Perrah Yarborough from Gentle Whisper of Chaos © 2022.
Baba's Tree
Avatar Meher Baba blessed Meher Mount with His presence in 1956, spending time under the Coast Live Oak now called Baba's Tree. Since then, it has become a touchpoint for visitors — a sacred spot to spend time in quiet contemplation to find inspiration, solace, and joy.