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| Along side the labyrinth at Mercy Center, is this tree. It has two eyes . |
This account was not my first encounter with the healing energy of trees, but it was the first time in years.
Trees have reminded me that I am never alone many times and in many places. One time, I was way out in the villages in Kenya when a hail storm came out of nowhere. No one came out of their mud hut to welcome me in, so, I ran for the nearest tree and stood as close to it as I could get - hugging it for dear life. with my cloth over a basket on my head. A short time there after, I was welcomed into a home to dry before the fire.
Recently, the day after the end of a retreat I led in California, I walked the labyrinth with the intent of having a serious dialogue with Higher Self - the Mystery of Life - the Universal Presence - God. Name it what you will, we were going tohave a serious talk that morning about its long leave of absence from my life.
I wove in and through the great maze when I came to the tree on the outer edge. I stopped in my tracks and starred at the tree. Much to my surprise, the tree began to speak - in that still small voice, of course - but the message was loud and clear.
Two limbs had been sawed off so they wouldn't impede the path of the labyrinth. The scars looked like eyes. The tree expressed this severing as being its primal wounding, that place which appears to be too painful to ever heal - and this tree bore two.
Yet, this tree, described the honor it felt to be able to stand solid, growing deep roots, endlessly reaching for the sun, and yearly adding a ring of priceless experience to its girth, learned from peering through those two eyes on its trunk.
"The wounds are my gift", it said, "to those who walk this path of healing."
I thanked the tree from the center of my heart, and continued the circular walk back and forth on the labyrinth there at Mercy Center, in Burlingame, CA.
Remember a story where a tree was a channel for your own healing. Share it with me, please.
3 comments:
Your opening tree photo is amazing. Is that a tree you know or an online photo?
It reminds me so much of the tree on my grandparents farm. It was a favorite playing place for us as kids. Seems like family photos were always taken with "The Tree" as the backdrop. Oral tradition has it that my grandfather was 18 years old when he was on horseback and "topped" the tree so that it would spread more beautifully and it did! Granddad was born in 1862, so at 18, that would make it 1880 when the tree was as tall as a rider on a horse. Around 1998, it was reported to be among the 12 oldest white oaks in NC. Lightning had struck it many times and it was scared and torn like the one in your photo. (I need to check these dates, but you can get the idea.) A huge wind storm really did a number on it and the tree split with a huge portion hanging by a really slim piece of bark. Amazingly, the leaves still came out on that old tree. The cousins were able to gather and view it in its "still hanging on" phase, before it finally fell in another storm a year or two later. It has always been a reminder of the sturdiness of our family stock and the resiliency that of our family. Cards and stories about big oak trees carry lots of meaning to us cousins because of that tree in our lives. Lynda
powerful message...may I share it with others??
Shamai
Nice, Judi. Thanks for sharing your story....
Molly Young Brown, M.A., M.Div
PO Box 1301 Mt Shasta CA 96067
530-926-0986 (phone & fax)
MollyYoungBrown.com
PsychosynthesisPress.com
Editor.of Lighting A Candle: Collected Reflections on a Spiritual Life. (2010)
Co-editor of Held in Love: Life Stories to Inspire Us Through Times of Change (2009)
Author of Growing Whole: Self-realization for the Great Turning (2009) and Unfolding Self: The Practice of Psychosynthesis (2004)
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