Learning from Trees
People often approach animals, plants, mountains, rivers… as things that are separate and foreign to them. They may focus only on their human perspective or their personal thoughts and emotions about other life forms.
Communicating with other species, honoring their intelligence and spiritual nature, can bring us broader perspectives on life, more understanding, and peace. Here’s an example of how communicating with a tree became a spiritually enriching experience. It started with a Facebook message to me.
The Connection
Michelle wrote: I admire what you've accomplished in your life. I wish I could understand life like you. Lately I've been faced with an awful decision where I live where an old, majestic oak tree that's so beautiful is going to be cut down to pieces. I feel for it and I know its crying and I'm crying. I tried to reach out to people and organizations but no one seems to care. I know when you communicate with animals that other life is also involved. I’m empathetic about this. Any words of advice are truly appreciated.
I answered: Explain to the tree what is about to happen. Your loving connection can make a difference. Trees often take a broader and longer view of life and how they survive on as spirits and through other trees of their kind and trees everywhere. Feel the beauty and wisdom of the tree and open to the tree’s full communication rather than just your own emotions. I understand your compassion. In your compassion for the tree, life is uplifted.
Michelle: I wanted to let you know how grateful I am for your kind words and wisdom. My family and I gathered around the tree, expressed our compassion, and blessed it. And we blessed the other trees facing the same fate on the property. This turned a tragedy into a profound spiritual experience. Again, thank you for your compassionate support and understanding advice.
Broader View
In my book, When Animals Speak, I wrote about trees’ broader view.
With an eighty-year-old Bishop pine, I felt the timelessness of trees. As I melded with and became the tree, I had a sense of permeation with all of life. All living beings appeared as energy forms interacting—wave shadows going by and coalescing with all other life forms. I felt infinite tolerance, even for death, and the sense of my tree energy form as continuing, indestructible, and connected with all trees that ever are, were, and will be. My awareness was high and wide, experiencing all life as one and continuing, no matter the change of the solid, outward form. Infinite wisdom, eternal singing, fusion with all rhythms.
I assumed my own viewpoint again and conversed with the tree. The Bishop pine mentioned that most young trees are more concerned with survival, more emotional, close to instincts of self and others, and more threatened by death. The older, wiser trees consoled the young trees who were hurt or dying and encouraged them to carry on. Among species of plants there was a whole support system, a spiritual and energetic connection.
I’ll Be A Tree
This poem crystallized as I leaned up against a giant redwood tree:
When I grow up, I'm going to be a tree
I'll stand straight and tall
And nothing will bother me
The world will be mine—all.
The stars will shine on me
The rain will fall on me
The moon will beam on me
The wind will whistle through my branches
And I will love it all.
I will love the ants crawling on my bark
The birds alighting on my limbs
The children climbing on my gnarled trunk
And when it comes time for me to die
I will love my death
A dance, a slow parade of releasing
And transforming my power through all the Earth.
My life will be full of experiences with other beings
Nurturing and sharing my life with them
I will thrill to all the usefulness they find in me
I will laugh and love and sing
And remember it for all time.
My legacy will live and die
And live again for everyone on Earth
What greater joy could one being have
Than to share the multitude of forms, functions, energies
In every pore to every soul in every form.
When I grow up, I swear I'll be a tree.
I'll understand the ways of all life and accept them all
Even when humans chop my limbs or cut me down whole
And my death is apparently hastened
I'll not grieve or feel any pain
For I know that I'll live
As my fellow beings' houses, fences, sheds, or shelters
And nourish them all—humans, animals, plants alike
And parts of me left in the forest will grow and change
As home to many creatures small and large.
My spirit great will spread throughout the world
My roots will reach the power that holds the Earth alive
I'll know the joys and woes of all the world
And feel the pulsing of the universe.
I know, I know, I deeply know
When I grow up I'll be a tree.
Telepathic communication with trees and all beings, no matter their form, is truly a magic transformer, moving us forward on our spiritual journey on Earth. For more insight on communicating with all life, read Animal Talk and When Animals Speak, and continue to expand your understanding with this program.
