Connecting with Trees
When I speak about connecting with trees, it often comes across as something that is reserved for those tuned into their “extra sensory” channels and something beyond the reach of most people. While I can understand that sentiment, I do not believe it to be true.
First off, we need to understand that we are connected to everything all the time. This includes trees, plants, animals, the ocean, the mountains, and so on. We have a reciprocal relationship with everything in our environment. We just don’t often slow down enough to hear it.
Second, we all have the ability to be more aware of our connection to the things in our environments, it is more a matter of taking the time to slow down and bring our awareness into focus (or more like out of focus. We want to suspend any expectations on how the connection and communications will happen, as those are based on our narrow spectrum of our own human experiences, which can often have us missing the more subtle information.)
Trees are old beings. Time moves at a different pace for them. Their communications are not rushed. They are not pressured by the pressures of the busy and hurriedness of the human species. They speak to us in ways that require us to suspend our preconceived notions of what we think is supposed to happen, or how we think it is supposed to happen or how fast it we think it is supposed to happen.
Like anything else of the living world, trees have cellular memory. Everything they have ever experienced, it held within that memory. Sometimes, that memory may be shared with us. There is choice around this, and this choice belongs to the trees. What it entirely depends on as far as exchange, I am not quite sure. For there is always a reciprocity between the human species and the trees. Actually there is a reciprocity between all of nature. This is just life. In my own experience, I have found that the connection to trees flows best with trees that call to us, or that we are called to commune with. Which comes first, I cannot say. I sometimes feel that when we suddenly take note of a tree that captivates us, it is a calling from that tree to commune.
So how to you connect and communicate with trees?
First, I think it is vital to realize that we are always connected to trees, just as we are to everything in life. It is also important to truly accept that humans are of no higher importance in the grand environmental ebb and flow of life as trees are. There is a greater purpose, which may actually seem “less than” humans make it out to be. Perhaps the purpose is communication. Perhaps the purpose is love. Perhaps the purpose is just to be in connection with one another. Anything I attempt to “figure out” is coming from my perspective of a human on this planet who was taught that humans are superior to all other life on the planet, and even though I no longer believe this, the roots to this run deep and I don’t know if they will ever be completely shaken free.
Next, you sit with the trees and you listen. You suspend expectations on how the communication happens. You suspend “looking for” the thing that you, with your human perspective, believe to be valid communication between you and the trees. You simply sit.
It is helpful to be aware of your own body, your breath, your heart, and your mental and emotional states before sitting. It helps us to better notice shifts and changes that may occur.
Notice what you feel in your own body. What parts of it do you suddenly become aware of. Notice what your emotions feel like. Do you suddenly feel happy? Sad? Angry?
Notice what is also happening around you. Does a hummingbird fly nearby while you are sitting with a tree? Do dragonflies suddenly appear around you?
Notice what happens in your mental/memory? Are you suddenly transported back into time in your grandmother’s kitchen? Or to a moment when you were 5 that you hadn’t thought about in a very long time?
It is my belief that this is the beginning connection and communications that we have with trees.
And so we continue to sit and listen.
Gradually a sort of trust develops. I dont really know if it IS trust, it is just the best word that comes to mind. We open up more to the trees and they open up more to us. We may receive visions in our minds eye of things that seem to have nothing to do with us - fires, lightening strikes, carriages from 150 years ago moving down a dirt road. This is the tree sharing it’s cellular memory with you. Just as with humans, trees are going to share things that need witnessing - either for themselves or for you.
Your role is simply to listen. To receive. And it also is to share.
When you develop relationships with trees - and maybe it will be just one special tree - fascinating supports of giving and receiving begin to become more apparent. We can ask for support from our tree friend. We can also ask what support our tree friend might need. And we get to receive and give and so does the tree.
Lastly, you accept that everything you experience is real. It is too easy to dismiss things as coincidental. It is easy to say “I just made that thought that happened to pop in up”. Energetic connection is fascinating. It is something that I dont believe we fully understand nor can we. It is much bigger than us and much bigger than our minds, at most of the capacity that we walk around with, can comprehend. I think it is best to not try and figure it out - which can be hard as we are such curious beings and have the need to know. When we can suspect that need, and really just allow, well….that is when the magic happens.
We really do not have to TRY so hard. We just need to slow down, listen, receive, and give without expectation and without trying to put it into a box that makes sense. I have found that each time I have put something in a box to make myself more comfortable (because the unknown can be incredibly uncomfortable) I miss out on a lot of things. And eventually I realize….oh i put it in a box again! Silly me. And I open back up. This is part of my own rewilding process.
Simply. Sit. Listen. Connect. Repeat.
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