Nature Speaks Project

Interview took place January 12, 2008.

FROM:   MEG BEELER – www.earthcaretakers.net

(A place-holder until her interview is transcribed…..)

8/06 Connecting With the Web: Begin With One Tree

Everyone has a special tree somewhere. When shape or size or color draw our attention, the tree seems to call us, offering us the possibility of deeper connections.

Our bodies remember the childhood trees we climbed or read under, swung from or used for imaginary games. So it is not hard—we only have to drop our adult self-consciousness and judgment—to make relationships with the trees we are drawn to. That might mean leaning up against an ancient oak during a hike, or lying along the low branch of one. It might mean circling the biggest tree in our neighborhood, letting fingertips draw across bark daily to say hello. Or it might mean painting the tree or imprinting its bark into clay.

In an experiment that opens my heart with wonder each time I think of it, experienced meditators sat with their backs to trees and entered a meditative state. Concurrently, using highly sensitive recording devices, Bernie Krause and his cohorts measured the rhythms of human breath and tree sap rising and falling. Guess what? Each tree slowed the flow of its sap to match the breathing pattern of its meditator! The trees consciously entrained with the humans. This means that we humans can teach ourselves to entrain with a tree by letting our breath, our consciousness, and our awareness match the tree’s awareness, and by listening to tree’s story, advice, and requests.

It’s a subtle process, for trees have very subtle energy (as opposed to the “gross” sensations that Buddhist teachers speak of). I have found that I can begin the process of deep listening with some very physical practices: exchanging energy back-to-back with a tree, leaving offerings, and pulling weeds or otherwise taking special care with it.

Slowly, as I become familiar and make friends with a particular tree, I notice more: the birds and other creatures that move through it; how wind and sun interact with it; patterns of light and shadow; how the tree interacts with other trees nearby. Then I begin to make mental shifts, to open my cells, and to experience the “collective field” that surrounds me and the tree, the tree and its neighbors, the ecosystem it is a part of. As I notice these energies and interactions, our interrelationship becomes alive.

The physical plays into metaphysical: it is easier to step into parallel realities and journey to the magical realms a tree inhabits when we have a relationship in the mundane world. All the childhood stories you read, where a hole in a tree was the opening used to enter other worlds, is based on this, and we know that this method is at least 50,000 years old!

When we consider that only 7% of our communication is verbal, it becomes easier to imagine coming into congruence with a tree. The pleasure, beauty, and balance such connection brings to our frantic human lives is well worth a few minutes a day. It can also be crucial to our conscious movement through challenges both personal and global. Each relationship brings new and shifted awareness, qualities of attention, and ways of perceiving. Each relationship offers us more energy, fortitude, and wisdom for our lives. As in everything, it’s a matter of paying attention, listening, asking: how can you help me? What’s our relationship for? How can I help you?

As we near the fall equinox,  I remind you of Chief Seattle’s words: “Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”

Links

Fall classes & events in Bay Area

“Shamanism for Beginners” in September, Veteran’s soul retrieval project in November in Sonoma.

Journeying with Spirits of Nature [basic on journeying w/ examples]       

http://www.earthcaretakers.net/id22.html

Hummingbird Birthing Pictures

Take a look at the delicate beauty you might see in your tree!

http://community-2.webtv.net/Velpics/HUM/

Web of life Goes to the UN

Sandra Ingerman reports on her presentation at the UN in July 2006

http://www.shamanicvisions.com/ingerman_folder/06august.html