So Monday, Memorial Day, I went to the local Brookside Botanical Gardens, for reflection ... and wanted to share my experience with you:
After a period of reflection, it felt time to pay attention to my body felt experience of nature. Weirdly, just sitting wasn’t cutting it. What I wanted to and did do was lay on a weathered wood park bench in the 87-degree shade and look up at the impressive canopy of mixed hardwoods. As I calmed and settled, I felt the trees' presence strongly. I thought about all the things trees do and their purposes, such as creating roots to help hold the soil in place and prevent erosion. That they shelter, birds, squirrels, and hundreds of insects, their leaves release oxygen and then fall and become part of the soil eventually, and they provide shade for other plants and animals. I have gratitude that they do all that and more, yet that is still not what I was experiencing.
What was so remarkable was their tree-ness. Stunning. It was the feeling I got from their presence. Just a heart-centered beingness. An I am. There was no sense from them of “last winter was tough and it feels hard to move forward from that,” or “no, I’m not full enough, I’ve lost some branches to the wind and weather, I’m not good.”
Although they have lost branches, evident in leafless half twigs sticking out here and there. And they all varied in the fullness of their crowns. No, I felt a sense of wholeness of trees that had nothing to do with that sense of lack and suffering I have, that most humans have. And I’m not saying that trees don’t suffer these days, just I was tuned into the wholeness of their presence. As I continued looking up, occasionally watching a loose leaf roll its way to the ground, or a bird fly over their canopy, I began to feel the wholeness of my presence, which likewise has nothing to do with my physical ailments or my haircut, or if I feel someone slighted me, or my growing up conditions. Just a sense of being present to the trees.
I began to feel the trees breathing, and became aware that I began to breathe with them. Now at this point, science-minded readers might say “uh, wait a minute..” The science-minded part of me says “Yes, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I began to experience my own breathing as if it were the trees breathing.” Yet time and time again people have expressed experiences with nature as that of oneness and harmony, of nature as a healing balm, as an experience that helps them to feel less separate and isolated in the world, as a source of inspiration, guidance, and wisdom. For me, on this hot day, the trees helped me reconnect with my heart-centered place within. A place where I know just how to move forward, how to choose, and how to live.
So with a hug for the science-minded part of myself, this was a brief touching in with the experience of spirit, of prayer as a conversation, and I realize I have been monologuing a lot and missing the direct experience of conversing with spirit and the healing and gifts that brings.
I hope you enjoy reading this, as I appreciate sharing it with you.
Photo credit: Valiphotos, Pexels.com