Trees

Today is an ode to trees.  As the pace of change increases in both personal and societal transitions it is very important to take time to ground and recharge.  Trees can be a valuable resource for this.  Lately I have been taking time to climb a special tree near my home, sitting in its various grooves, touching the bark, listening to the silence of wind across the bare branches, observing the patterns of its roots, smelling the humus of its leaves upon the winter ground.  When not at my climbing tree I can simply look at a tree anywhere in the city, pause for a moment and hug it, smell it, kiss it, and receive its grounding.  Sleeping  on the earth at the occupation, I can tune into the roots of trees below me, feel their embrace, and let them lull me to sleep with their ancient songs.  In this a memory is waking of how we used to live, before stone and wood boxes became our homes, returning to the elements. 

roots on the campus of Roehampton University

We used to live in trees, long ago, and some communities still do.  It is only a few thousand years since we came out of the forest, the blood memory of our relationship to trees is still vital.  As we grow new sociological roots a synergistic relationship to the forest is once again possible.  I have dreams of planting hundreds of oaks and other sacred trees in  spiral patterns on the land, much as our ancestors raised stone circles and pyramids, in order to form gateways that will be prescient and potent in about 200 years time.  

In Celtic lore the oak is a symbol for the world tree.  In India it is the banyan tree.  The world tree functions to connect the inner earth to the cosmos, and many shamans travel via the world tree to various lower and upper dimensions of realities.  We are nourished by the world tree and she nourishes us.  In my experience, it is the world tree which infuses the planet with etheric currents which cause the plants to grow.  These same currents connect us to gravity and provide a ground for the electromagnetic impulses of our pineal gland.  We  nourish her through observation of her beauty, in meditation and dance, and through sacred sexuality.  When she is strong in us our sexual feeling is strong and much creative power is available for all types of thinking and being.

American Oak

The Banyan Tree

Some of my favourite trees are the giant redwoods of northern California. They  are protected in groves along the pacific coast from Humbolt county up to southern Oregon, and they are majestic!  Walking among them one simply feels quiet, ancient, still.  They soar to the heavens, fog blankets their legs in a haze of swirling skirts, sunbeams penetrate the fog with gentle opalescence.  In spring the rhododendrons bloom, in summer campers fill the valleys.  Wide blue rivers run through the national parks, the smell of the sea hangs in the distance.  One of the eight natural wonders of the world, I am lucky to have grown up around them, and to return to their ancient faery-like magical awe in the recesses of my sleep.  As Joyce Kilmer wrote: 

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Sequoias of Humbolt County