Feral Apples

Apples have started to fall from the wild trees that grow in the woods where I hike. In the last couple of weeks, maybe encouraged by the return of the rain, the abundant fruit has seemed to power through the last stages of ripening, growing more plump and taking on a beautiful red blush. Yesterday the dog and I shared our first feral apple of the season. It’s going to be a great harvest this year.

The same woods produce abundant black raspberries. It’s common to see people picking them, whether it’s just a handful for a quick snack or a container full to take home for later. Not so with the apples. Much more often, these lovely fruits simply fall to the ground, only to be run over by mountain bikers or kicked aside by hikers and joggers. Only the wasps seem to truly appreciate wild apples.

I think a lot of people are afraid of feral apples because they only barely resemble the fruit you buy at the grocery store. Cultivated apples have been engineered to be regular in size, larger, and to resist the scabs that naturally form as an apple grows. They stay white for longer. They are visually pleasing, assessed by the eye rather than the palate or the nose.

And yet, feral apples are very good. The apple I ate yesterday was small – about a third of the size of the average cultivated apple. It was dense with flavour, both sweet and tart. The flesh was also harder and crunchier than most store-bought apples. It was irregular in size, and bore some scabs from the trauma of growing. As I ate it, the pristine white flesh turned brown extremely quickly.

It could be that people are concerned that somehow feral apples will prove to be hard to digest, or that because they are wild crafted, they must contain numerous worms and insects. Yes, it’s best to avoid apples that have fallen to the ground. “Never eat a windfall apple,” advised the grandmother character in The Company of Wolves, and she was right (although you should stray from the path as often as possible). Once the tree is ready to release her fruit, all it takes is a little shake to make apples fall. Grab them when they hit the ground, and you’ll be just fine.

While I’m sure feral apples are more nutritionally dense than their domesticated counterparts, the most profound thing about them is their energetic effect on the body. After eating that one small apple yesterday, I was filled with a strong, uplifting energy that lasted for hours. It isn’t too surprising: an apple tree I spoke to last year told me that fruit trees have chosen to pour their energies into fruit as an expression of love for people and animals. Because wild fruit trees aren’t under the kind of duress that cultivated trees must endure, that voluntary energy of love remains with their fruit.

After enjoying that first apple, I put out an intention to gather more the next time I go to the woods. As I walked along the remainder of my route, numerous apple trees I hadn’t noticed before practically jumped out at me. I even found a densely laden pear tree, with enough fruit hanging on it to feed a family for the entire winter.

The next time you’re in the woods, keep an eye out for a feral apple or pear tree. Give the tree a shake and enjoy a gift from the natural world.

Midsummer at Iroquoia Heights

Even if I'm stuck inside, I find it's good to look at photos of green and growing things. I took these on the 5th of August at my favourite hiking spot. It never ceases to amaze me how, despite the consistency of the heat and the humidity, the natural world is always pushing toward some kind of transformation. If you go out today in my neck of the woods, you'll find wild plantain going to seed, sumac fruit ready to pick and squeeze into a glass of water, feral apple trees beginning to throw off their first fruits, and a host of late summer flowers coming into their own. The skies are putting on their own constant show, with an amazing array of varied and ever-shifting clouds passing through. Have you looked at the sky lately?

Click on any photo to embiggen.

A Simple Tree Meditation for the Middle of Summer

Oooops....was what I said to myself when I took a look at the date of my last post. It's been a while! Suffice it to say that I've been out in the woods. I hope you all have, too.

We've just passed Lammas, the "feast of first fruits" in the pagan calendar. The gorgeous black raspberries that were so abundant and delicious this year are on their way out here in Southern Ontario. We're just starting to benefit from the beautiful peaches and gorgeous yellow plums grown in the Niagara region. Now that solstice and the intense heat of July have passed, we're beginning the long, slow slide into cooler weather.

Source

The trees are reaching the height of their activity for the summer. They are fully present in their physical forms, and busy with the activity of drawing energies from the earth and the sun in order to foster growth. If you have never talked with a tree, or communed with the woods, now is an excellent and relatively easy time to begin.

Today when I was out in the woods, I spoke with Brother Oak, my favourite tree and the one I go to when I want an immediate answer to a question. I asked him what he thought would be the best information for me to pass on to people today. He showed me a simple meditation you can do with a tree in order to connect with the energies of the season.

If you already have a go-to tree that you like to connect with, then ask that tree to help you with the meditation. If you don't have a go-to tree, then wander through a wooded area until you find a tree that grabs your attention or that you feel attracted to. (If you find yourself tripping over a root or getting your shirt or hair snagged on a low-hanging branch, it could be that you've met your tree.) This meditation is best done with an older tree.

Needless to say, this is not the only way to commune with a tree right now. They have lots to say and want to help you with whatever questions or energies you bring to them. However, if you're at a loss in terms of what to do with a tree that wants to talk to you, this is an excellent way to begin and can help you feel really great.

This meditation is best done standing with your body facing the tree. Stand with your spine straight and your feet flat on the ground (or as flat as possible if the tree has lots of big roots). Acknowledge the tree in your mind and allow any imagery or words that might come to you.

Shift your awareness down to your feet. Allow your feet to spread out and relax. (Energy does not flow through tension.) Imagine the tree's roots spreading down into the earth. Ask the tree to show you how deeply he or she draws energy. Ask him or her to drop you down into the earth's core, where these energies originate. Note that, depending on your talents and proclivities, you are more likely to feel your way into this energy than to see it unfolding in your mind's eye. Feel yourself connect with the earth's core, and feel any warmth, tingling, or sensations that bounce back up at you and into you. Don't force the energy. Just allow the tree to help you feel what she or he feels.

Once you're comfortable with this, ask the tree to show you what it feels like to draw the energies of the sun down through his or her leaves. Relax your head and face completely, and make sure that your spine is straight so you can receive these energies. Feel the activity of the leaves as they receive the energies of the heavens. Allow those energies to pour down on you and through you.

Once you're comfortable with the two energies, focus on relaxing and opening your insides, especially throughout your chest and belly. Allow the energies to mingle and move freely. Note any sensations that follow.

We are open to the twin energies of the earth and sun all the time, but this meditation will help you to work with them more abundantly. If you have any questions while you're working with the tree, ask them, and see if any words or imagery or sensations come through for you.

When you're finished, thank the tree for his or her help.

Further Reading: How to Talk to a Tree

Early Winter, Part 2

Sometime after the first serious snow fell and stuck, a couple of weeks ago, I went out into the woods for another walk with the dog and photo taking session. I hit the hiking trail parking lot at about 8:45am, about an hour after sunrise.

The light was exquisite as I began to move into the trees. I couldn't resist diving straight into the side trails, which would take me into the heart of the woods.

*Click on any of these photos to view larger versions.*

Often, as I begin to walk among trees, I try to tune in to my inner voice, and to see what resonates with me that day. More often than not, I'll end up running up the hill to check in with Brother Oak. Occasionally, I'll decide to simply wander, which often results in a merry chase in which I find some tree I haven't met before saying "Hey, you!" I've had trees pull me in through the dog - he'll go off chasing some scent or other, and I'll find him sitting quite contentedly at the base of some pine. This day, I knew right away that I wanted to talk to Grandmother Oak, also known as Don't Kill Me Oak.

Before I could get to her, I had quite a bit of snow to slog through, and an incredible sunrise to admire.

A brief interlude that may in fact turn out to be the point of this post: when I got back home and transferred these photos onto my computer, I was very surprised to see how they turned out. Many of them featured truly weird lens flare effects / orbs / fairy lights / alien discs descending??? I am sure that there are plenty of people out there who know much, much more about photography than I do who could explain away many of these effects. Some of them seem particularly freaky to me. None of these photos have been altered in any way, except for the one above this paragraph and one other (I'll point it out when I get to it) - here I used the clone feature in a photo editing program to remove the black spot that sometimes forms when you take a photo of the sun with a cheap digital camera like mine.

Anyway, I thought these might be of interest. Note that I did not experience any missing time or negative feelings during this hike. It was all good!

These were two photos I didn't think I would share. I was basically trying to take pictures of my dog (isn't he cute in his little red coat?). I didn't perceive these discs in the preview screen thinger when I took these pictures, but it was awfully bright out there.

A slightly different angle. He's chewing on that stick. It's his hobby.

This is black cherry bark. Like a lot of fruit trees, black cherries emanate a warm, friendly, generous energy. I haven't spent much time talking with them, but I did really enjoy their fruit last summer. Looking forward to it again already.

A purple-to-green prism. I took this photo just after checking in with Brother Oak. During our conversation he showed me an image of fairies dancing in a ring. When I asked him what they were doing, he told me it was a celebration in preparation for bringing in the spring. There is always some kind of magic at work in the woods. We think that we're deep in winter, but the reality is that on an energetic level, spring is already on its way.

I have mixed feelings about the signs I'm seeing that winter will soon be broken. There are few sights more beautiful than bare branches against the winter sky.

This can be a high traffic area during certain times of the year. Only a couple of animals had passed through that morning.

Don't Kill Me Oak. I call her this because she's got a huge number of stripped bare, long and heavy looking branches still attached to her trunk. When you walk the path that runs past this tree, you have to walk under at least three of these branches. It's impossible to cuddle up to her trunk and converse with her without standing directly under at least one. Talking to her is like interacting with a really sweet pit bull. There's a whole lot of power there, and you're aware that you're on its good side, and for that, you're grateful.

I had a good exchange with her that day. This is the same tree who told me, back in the beginning, that humanity has to go to the woods, hang out with the trees, and acknowledge them.

Her theme was similar the day I took these pictures. But she emphasized that the trees don't want our sombre, reverent energies. She talked a lot about how what they really need is for people to go into the woods to celebrate. Spend time with the trees, she advised. Open a bottle of wine at their feet, pour a little into the ground, talk, laugh, and share some food. Better yet, bring music. They want our celebratory emotions to help them make the transition from season to season. This is part of loving and acknowledging nature: partying with nature!

Candlemas, or Imbolc in pagan traditions, is coming up on February 2nd. In tree terms, this is the turning of the tide in winter. We are no longer going deeper into the cold. The sun's return is beginning to have its effects, and the earth is stirring. Everywhere in the Northern hemisphere, the signs of life will begin to appear in abundance from this date forward, for those who care to look. Apparently this time of year is the beginning of the mating season for chipmunks, squirrels, wild turkeys, geese and Google knows what else.

If you can manage some time outside on Candlemas eve, or better yet, during the day itself, this would be a wonderful moment to party with the trees, animals, plants and elementals that are working so hard to make spring happen. All they ask, according to Don't Kill Me Oak, is that we share some ebullient energy with them.

An orb shaped lens flare. I used clone to remove a black spot from the image of the sun. Otherwise, this photo is untouched.

As I moved into the open field that marks the halfway point of the walk, I was very grateful for the bright, warm sunshine. Despite the fact that it was pretty cold that day - about minus 12 centigrade - I was able to take off my mittens and catch a bit of sun on my hands. It felt wonderful. I took a photo, not expecting it to look like much, of the field, snow, and sunshine.

Upon closer examination, I noticed the weird rainbow sheen on the other side of the field, toward the treeline. This image is cropped and enlarged. Click to view larger:

I was a bit intrigued / freaked out by the shapes I saw in this rainbow mist. The one that is about dead centre of this image I saw right away. When I began to look a little closer, I saw the one to the right.

In case you don't see anything, I've added some arrows to point out the shapes I'm seeing. The arrow on the left points to a weird almost star-shaped thing. The squiggly arrow points to what I see as the head of a larger animal-type shape. The diagonal arrow on the far right points to the back of that same shape.

View larger by clicking the photo.

Personally, I don't know what to make of this. I've felt many things in that field as well as in the woods, and seen many sparkly lights and shimmering heat wave effects that I associate with energy beings and elementals that are always there in the natural world. Everything I've felt there has been extremely positive, and I was feeling especially happy to be there that day. In any case, I think it's interesting.

I hope you're able to get outside and into nature - despite the cold - in the coming days. It's so worthwhile.

Early Winter

As I write this, we're far enough past solstice now that you can tell that the days are getting longer. We're also getting more and more into proper winter weather. In the past two weeks we've gone from this slightly tentative version of winter:



To this not-at-all-shy version:



Since then, there's been a cold snap, a warm snap, and overnight, it's supposed to snow again. In other words, it's a fairly typical Southern Ontario winter.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been heading out with my camera and trying to capture some of the beautiful shifts that have been occurring in the world of trees and plants since the solstice. At this time of year, as I've mentioned before, trees are in a deep phase of dreaming, a time when the connection between their spirits and physical selves are a little bit looser than usual. They go deep into their collective consciousness at this time. A good question to ask a tree right now is, "What are you dreaming?" They will often share amazing imagery, sensations and even some snippets of narrative that can include information about the role we play in the grand cycles of the sun, earth and cosmos.

At the same time, even though we might think of the solstice as the beginning of a time of stasis, you'll find that many trees and plants begin to form buds in early January. I've tracked this phenomenon for the last several years. It always happens, and always, people remark on it. "The trees have started to bud. I hope they don't get injured in the winter."

"We've had a warm snap. The trees are blooming way too early."

We love to worry about how things are going horribly wrong, don't we? But believe me, the trees know exactly what they are doing.

My understanding of these January buds is that they are part of the interaction of the trees with earth energy at this time of year. Leading up to the winter solstice, the trees have been driving their energies down into the earth. Because our Mother is nothing if not generous, this sending of energy results in a pretty immediate reverberation of energies back up through the trees. Although she will rest throughout the winter, and only send the real power surge of energy up into the trees when they are ready to begin the push toward spring, shortly after early February, there is a slight uprising of energy now. The buds of early winter are like a thank you, a sign of remembrance from Mother Earth, reminding us that the apparent death of winter is only an illusion and a dreaming.

In the meantime, despite the small signs that winter's back will someday be broken, the early winter woods everywhere bear the evidence of the end of the previous time of growth.

The trees dream lucidly. If you tried to talk to them in the week or two after solstice, you might have found them sluggish and unresponsive, but all in all, they are willing and able to share their dreaming with those who take the time to ask. This hawthorne bore an awesome tangle of sharp thorns all over her straight, unbranching trunk. I asked her to talk to me.

She showed me the image of a castle, much like the one in the Sleeping Beauty stories, covered in thorns. This impassable tangle looked like it was hiding secrets that no one could ever know, because no one could ever get through the plants that protected them.

The hawthorne seemed to have plucked this image from my mind to use as a touchstone for the lesson she was about to offer. When we enter the dream state of trees, we mingle with their collective consciousness, adding our awareness to theirs so that we can have a free and open exchange of imagery and ideas.

In the image the hawthorne shared with me, a lone rider approached the thorn-covered castle. "I know this story," I said. "Doesn't he hack through all those thorns with a magic sword?"

"We are the growers of the thorns," said the hawthorne. "And this is why we show you what we show you. We block those who are not ready to enter into the heart of mystery. For those who are ready, we move aside and cause no harm."

The many tangled branches around the castle formed a tunnel, allowing the rider to move through and collect whatever prize it was he'd come for.

I understood from what the hawthorne showed me that there was no fight involved, no valiant battle to push through to the goal. If you aren't ready for initiation, for opening to the mysteries or entering into the Chapel Perilous, the thorny blockade will not yield, no matter what you do. But if you are prepared and in the right frame of mind, the way is open.

And you can always try again later.

"This is the truth of the heart of the world. This is what we protect," the hawthorne told me.

The heart of the world is nothing less than the energetic and emotional core of our Mother. The hawthorne is among the trees that enfold this heart in deep energetic taproots that they form at the earth's core. They've shown me this heart many times. Sometimes it appears as a pulsing green energy. Sometimes she is a sleeping goddess, and sometimes a matrix of tangled roots, beating all together to provide love and sustenance for all of us.

"Not everyone can have access," the hawthorne told me. "You must be sincere."

I carried on through the woods down a deer path to a place that is off the main trail, an open area that always feels calm and peaceful. At its heart is a tree with pale bark of a pearly grey. Its roots look like the tentacles of an octopus:

In the springtime, this area is often flooded with water. The ground squishes when you walk on it. This tree seems almost to float in the earth. He told me some fascinating things this day, about people who were here before modern humans, but that will have to wait until another time.

His branches did look beautiful against that sky, as did the rose of sharon pods in my backyard, a few days later:

About a week after I took these photos, it snowed. The weather cleared and we had some gorgeous bright days where the sky was blue and the light was just incredible. I took some really interesting photos in the woods when I went to talk to Grandmother Oak, but you'll have to wait until my next post.

Winter Solstice + Full Moon + Lunar Eclipse = ???

In case you're not following the seasonal shift that's about to happen, we are heading into winter tomorrow - Tuesday, December 21st - at 11:38pm Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Here in Southern Ontario, we are minus 5 hours relative to UTC, so our solstice occurs at 6:38 pm.

I always like to think about solstice in terms of the earth's elliptical orbit around the sun. Here is an excellent illustration from Ivan3Man, who posted it on this Discover online Bad Astronomy article. (Ivan, if you want me to take this down, let me know. If I can give you proper thanks / credit somehow, I'd be happy to!)

See where December 21st is? We are turning a corner here, moving into the long, flattish part of the earth's orbit where the Northern hemisphere starts to tilt toward the sun again (Australia, I hope you're enjoying your late spring / early summer).

This year, I don't know about you, but it's beginning to feel to me like we're screeching around that corner, stomping on the brakes while applying the gas in an oversized vehicle with under-inflated tires.

On top of the solstice, we've got a full moon on the night of the 21st. And, sometime in the wee hours, starting at about 1:30 in the morning, a full lunar eclipse.

Apparently, the last time a lunar eclipse coincided with winter solstice was 456 years ago, in 1554, according to Red Orbit. You might have noticed that a lot has changed since then.

I attended a wonderful seasonal meditation at Carol Glenn's last night, one theme of which was "buckle your seatbelts."

In the world of trees, there's a great preparation going on. Tomorrow, the trees will finish sending their energies and consciousness - along with our good wishes - into Mother Earth. Physically, the trees are at rest throughout the winter, which means that this is among the most peaceful and calming times of year to be out in the woods. If you're like me and you sometimes find the Christmas rush to be overwhelming, it's a great idea to throw on your boots and get outside for a little tree therapy this time of year.

If you choose to tap into a tree's energy and get some communication going, be forewarned. This is the trippiest time of year to try and talk to a tree, as I found out when I began an intensive program of communicating with trees this time last year.

Imagine my surprise when I found that although the trees withdraw from their physical locations throughout the winter, they don't just sit in the tree equivalent of an inner cave all winter. They join and meld with a collective consciousness that goes back millions of years. They join with the consciousness of trees in other dimensions of reality, or other planets (honestly, I'm not totally clear on which it is, or if those two things are the same thing).

They're still attached to their physicality to some degree, so you can still talk to them. For a fun adventure, ask a tree, "Where are you?" any time in the next three months. Wait for imagery to come to you. Through trees, I've seen dimensions where trees can walk and interact with the world just like we do; I've seen tropical forests here on earth; I've seen the ancient world, where humans clustered in vast numbers under the branches of the giant World Tree to ask for help and guidance.

It gets really interesting in the world of trees in the winter season. What are you waiting for? Get out there.  

How to Feel Energy With Your Hands

In my last post, "How to Talk to a Tree," I mentioned that one of the things you should try to do when you approach a tree is to feel the tree's energy field with your hands. A large, wise or older tree typically projects its field several feet out from its trunk, although you'll feel more if you hover your hands a few inches over the bark.

A while ago, when I was helping a couple of friends get into tree communication, I put together a set of instructions for learning to feel energy with your hands. If you've never worked with energy, or you don't know what your own energy field feels like, this is a good starting place. The exercises I mention are based on  the Chinese discipline of qigong, which I write about more extensively on Tai Chi With Melissa.

I hope you have fun using these exercises. Enjoy!

In western culture many people are not used to the idea of the auric field or “chi bubble” or energy body, although the presence of this energy field is considered to be as plain as the nose on your face in many eastern cultures, and is common knowledge in alternative healing circles. One straightforward way to think of this energy is as the electromagnetic field generated by your cells. All living systems generate this field. The goal of this exercise is to begin to feel it with your hands.

WARM UP
If you are able to stand, that’s preferable, but you could do this exercise while sitting in a chair. If you do wish to sit, use a hard chair (kitchen / dining room chair) and sit toward the front of the chair with your feet flat on the floor. If you’re standing, stand with your feet shoulder width apart.

Bring your hands together, palms almost touching and fingers pointing away from your chest, in front of you. Your arms should be straight out from the centre of your chest. If your shoulders bother you, you can do this with your hands at belly level.

Slowly open your arms until they are stretched out to either side of your body, like you’re opening them to hug someone. As you open your arms out, try to make the movement come right up from the ground, pushing your feet into the floor to make yourself bigger. Do this whether you’re in a chair or standing. Try to feel that the movement of your whole body, as you make yourself taller by pushing into the floor, pushes your arms out to the side.

Bring your hands back together in front of you. Repeat the opening and closing movement, pushing into the floor to get taller and spread your arms wide, and relaxing down into the floor to bring the arms back together in front of you.

As you move, try to keep your shoulders relaxed and down. Don’t stop at the extremes of the movement – just keep moving gently. Try to relax as much as possible. You want to move softly and smoothly, not stiffly. A good image to use is that you’re pushing through water, moving the hands out to the side and then gathering the water in front of you.

When you’ve done that a few times (eight to ten repetitions), change your hands so that you’re pushing the water out in front of you, palms away from you. If you’re using the water imagery, you’re trying to splash someone – but slowly and gently. Then pull the water in toward you, palms facing you. As you push away, you want to push your feet into the floor to get as tall as you possibly can. As you pull in, relax back into the floor. Do this eight to ten times.

SENSING YOUR OWN FIELD
After you’ve warmed up, you’re ready to play with your energy. Bring your hands in front of you at or just under chest height, elbows bent so your hands are a few inches away from your body, fingers pointing away from your chest, so that your wrists sit at a comfortable angle. Imagine you’ve got a small ball of dough (about the size of a tennis ball) between your palms. Roll the imaginary ball of dough between your hands, first moving the hands in a circular motion toward you. Again, you want to make the movements slow and gentle - don't attack the imaginary dough like you are trying to punish it!  After a few moments, switch the direction of the rolling, moving the hands away from you, still keeping the imaginary dough between your palms. Keep your hands relaxed as you do this, fingers straight and gently spread.

After you’ve played with the rolling movement for a little while, try pulling your palms apart six to ten inches and then pressing them back together, keeping a couple of inches between them. As with the rolling motions, keep your hands relaxed, relax your whole body, and focus your attention on the palms of your hands. Play with these movements, alternating between the rolling and the stretching motions.

What you are looking for is any sensation you feel in the palms of your hands as you practice the rolling and stretching movements. If you feel something, just take note of it and continue the movement.

Common sensations are heat or tingling. Some people feel that there is a magnet repelling their hands from each other as they press them together. A feeling of fluffiness or something jello-like between the hands is also common. You might feel like there is something warm swirling around the hands, on the palms, on the backs, or both.

If you feel any of these sensations (and there are no doubt others you can feel), congratulations! You’re feeling your chi!

The reason why the sensations happen is that when you do this exercise, you are making the electromagnetic fields around the hands interact with each other. The hands are polarized differently, so the fields “buzz” a little as they encounter each other. Feeling your own chi is a preliminary step to getting a sense of what it feels like when your field interacts with someone else’s field, or a tree’s.

If you don’t feel anything the first time, please don’t be discouraged! Try again when you’re feeling relaxed and calm. Just sink into the movement, try to focus your mind on what you’re doing, and note any little sensation.

You can do this exercise “cold”, but it’s even better if you’ve recently been physically active in some way. Stretch a little, go for a walk, hit the gym, or even do some deep belly breathing. While you’re still feeling the buzz, go through the warmup and then try rolling and stretching the palms.

So – play with it, have fun, and if you do try the exercise, please let me know how it goes! I am very happy to answer any questions you might have.

How to Talk to a Tree

Many people yearn to commune with trees and their spiritual essence, but most believe this is not possible. However...communing with tree spirits is part of our human heritage: we just need to recapture an ability that we have lost over many generations of living in cities and gradually growing apart from the natural world. 

 ~Nathaniel Altman, Sacred Trees: Spirituality, Wisdom & Well-Being (Sterling Publishing, 2000)

So, just how do you go about talking to a tree?

Different people have different ideas. Over at Beliefnet, Valerie Reiss, expanding a list created by Mara Freeman, advises that you begin by noting how you feel as you walk among trees. Find a tree that resonates with you, and approach it, feeling its energy with your hands. Ask the tree's permission to spend some time with it. Sit beneath the tree and see what thoughts come to you. Allow the tree to take you into a state of meditation. Ask it questions, waiting for a response. When you're done, thank the tree.

Reiss writes about the kind of experience she's had using this method:

I had a mind-blowing semi-mystical experience hugging a crab-apple tree - I was able to connect to it and sense its power as a growing, living being.

I didn't hear it speak in words, but I did feel its wisdom resonate in me as a cleansing, rooted power - the tree seemed to be reminding me that I was just as whole and holy as it - no less pure, no more essentially complicated. What I also humbly realized was that trees, like every other being on the planet, like to be loved, noticed, given energy.

Over at Bookmice, Darkchilde recommends offering tobacco, using sage to smudge yourself, and deciding ahead of time what you want to ask the tree. "As with other forms of communication with beings other than humans, the information you receive may be in the form of visions, images, smells, tastes, colors, or almost anything else. Keep your ears open, too, for any sounds of particular birds or other animals that might be nearby."

Finally, Nathaniel Altman advises entering the realm of trees in a calm, aligned state. Enter the tree's energy field with a sense of respect. And above all, keep an open mind about what is about to happen. Altman writes:

Some of us may have preconceived mental images of what we would like to happen, or what we think will happen, or what we have time for when we are about to work with nature beings; in other words, we want to have mental control over our experience. 

One of the first things you'll learn about trees, however, is that they are full of surprises. It's important to stay open to what the tree wants to tell you or share with you. Altman also recommends an offering of tobacco. If you like, you can invoke the tree's spirit by saying or thinking that you come in the spirit of oneness. Altman suggests that you work to ground yourself, getting in touch with the earth, either through your feet or by sitting down on it. In my experience, once you enter the tree's zone, it will ground you in a much more hardcore way than you can probably ground yourself. Trees view us as very unrooted, and think this is a fault that requires immediate correction.

I wanted to start with these suggestions by other people because the method I've developed might not work for you, and it's important to devise a ritual and method that feels right.

In any case, here's how I recommend that people do it:

1. Choose a tree that you feel comfortable approaching. If you actively like the tree, things will go better.

2. Feel your way into the tree's energy field, using the palms of your hands and your whole body to sense the tree's power. You might feel a tingling, a sense that the air is thicker around the tree, or a vibration - a quality commonly expressed by larger, older trees.

3. While we're on the topic, older trees are more likely to be able to help you out that younger trees. Older trees in my experience have more connection with collective memories of the time when humans weren't so disconnected from the world of plants, and will try to help you reconnect with that world in quite profound ways.

4. I started out going into each interaction with a tree by offering energy healing. I am more and more convinced that the energy connection you make with a practice like reiki serves as a conduit for communication with the tree rather than an offering per se. Most trees have a much more powerful healing capacity than what humans can draw through our relatively small bodies. The most important offering you can make is your willingness to show up, commune with a tree, and learn. I do still offer reiki each time I connect with a tree, though, so this is speculation.

5. I prefer to hold my hands a couple of inches above the surface of the trunk, and face the tree (as in tree-hugging mode). Sometimes I lean against the tree, and occasionally I've been led to rest my forehead against the tree. I think a face-to-trunk connection is more powerful than when you turn your back to the tree. You wouldn't turn your back on a person you were talking to - so why turn your back on a tree?

6. Say hello. It would be weird to enter into conversation with anyone without saying "hi" first - I know, we're talking to trees, which is fundamentally weird by many measures, but there's no call for serious breaches in etiquette.

7. Feel any physical sensations as you connect with the tree. The first thing that a tree will do for you is correct your energy. As noted above, trees think we are terribly unrooted, and that we often fail to connect with the energies of the sun, as well. On an energetic level, we are supposed to work the same way as trees do: drawing energy from the earth, up through our feet, and drawing light from the sun through our eyes, and solar energy down through the crown of our heads. If you feel like your feet are sinking into the earth as you commune with a tree, or you find yourself standing up a little straighter, this is the tree correcting your energy flow for you. That's the primary form of tree communication. If that's all you get out of a session of tree talking, that's pretty good.

8. Open your mind's eye, as well as your mind's ear (not to mention your mind's touch, taste and smell). Chances are you won't experience any communication as actual sounds or visual effects that you see with your eyes. But you know how when you imagine something, you get a distinct visual image in your mind's eye? Or when you're processing something verbal, like a conversation you plan to have, you experience the words playing out in your mind? That's what you're looking for in communing with a tree: thoughts and images that don't come from you, but from the tree.

9. How do you know you're not making it up? Well, this requires practice. I've been told things by trees that I would never have thought of - and I've got a huge imagination. Start by asking questions with distinct, yes / no answers, and wait and see what happens. My friend Rita asked her tomato plants last year if they wanted to be pinched back, since popular wisdom states that this is what tomato plants need. When she asked, she added that she needed the answer to be very clear, because otherwise she wouldn't get it. Resonating in the air all around her, and in her head, she got back a very distinct "NOOOO!!!" Needless to say, there is no tomato plant pinching in her yard! If you make it clear that you want the answer, it will get through to you.

10. Have a conversation. Trees are intelligent beings. I don't mean that in an abstract way at all. They are capable of sophisticated exchanges about energy, our place in the world, the way plants communicate, human / tree bonding, earth changes, human potential, astral travel and our relationship with Mother Earth. Many of them want to teach us. After all, they have a huge investment in building a better relationship with us. All of our lives depend on it.

11. Enjoy your physical, emotional and spiritual experiences among trees. I've found that my time in the woods has only become more joyous, more profound and more filled with love the more I've talked to trees, from the wise oak to the stalwart white pine, and all points in between.

Approaching Winter

It's going to be an interesting solstice this December 21st. At the same time as the days reach maximum shortness, and we begin the turn back toward the light, we've got a full moon and an accompanying lunar eclipse. Wow! The days are just packed.

In the world of trees, the turn into winter is the time when they complete sending their energies down into Mother Earth. Everything they've gathered and stored throughout the spring, summer and fall, including their experiences and interactions with humans and other animals, goes down an energetic taproot system where it begins the process of germinating the energies of the earth so they can rise again with the advent of spring. 

Over my past year of apprenticeship with the trees, I've come to understand that this energetic exchange between the trees and the earth is really about consciousness. The trees share what they know with the earth, as much as they share heavier, more substantial, nourishing energies. Each tree uses this taproot connection to join the shared web of consciousness among all plants here on the planet, all plant consciousness that has ever been here on the planet, and in other dimensions. Talking with trees in the winter time can be quite trippy for this reason. You never know where a tree is going to tell you he's been. 

In these last few days leading up to solstice, we have a wonderful opportunity to send our wishes, hopes, intentions and healing energies to the earth and the web of plant life via the energetic taproot. Communicating to one tree at this point in time allows you access.

If you're unsure of how to begin, leaving your energies or intentions in a physical form is a great idea. In addition to sending reiki healing energy to various trees, this time last year, I baked simple cookies with oats, flour, and cashew butter and left a few in some of my favourite trees for squirrels and birds to enjoy. It's amazing what a little gift, given freely and with love can do to add to good will and harmony.   

Tree Communication: A Word on the Science

Fascinating article, "Do Trees Talk? Some Scientists Think They Do" on Scienceray. According to the article, David Rhoades and Colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle exposed some willow trees to potential danger by placing caterpillars on some of the trees. At first, the caterpillars did well, but after a few weeks, all of the trees - including the controls, that were not yet invaded by caterpillars - were producing more proanthocyanidin, a chemical that serves as a natural pesticide.

How did the control trees know to produce more of this chemical? The study authors concluded that the trees might be communicating with each other via pheromones. Other nay-sayers suggested that the trees didn't communicate at all, but that all were infected by a virus carried by the caterpillars, and were simply reacting to that infection.

I have a mixed view of work like this. On one hand, it's a step forward in viewing the world around us as a complex web of intermingling factors, many of which we don't fully understand.

On the other, the conclusions reported in the article are to me a screaming sign of how let down we've been by science. The article author writes:

as Professor Rhoades points out, if trees really do "talk" to each other, we may have to reassess our view that trees are totally inanimate. 

Okay. Now, even if you don't believe that it's possible to have complex energy exchanges with trees, or that they have a kind of intelligence, the idea that trees are "totally inanimate" should probably ring some alarm bells. Trees are anything but inanimate. They grow, for one thing. But they also move - you could even say they dance, as any of the multiple time lapse videos of trees on YouTube and other sites will attest.



I tend to think we're seeing trees more at face value when we approach them intuitively - like we do when we walk among them - or artistically - like we do when we make art like this time lapse. At the same time, our "objective" scientific training has led us to shut out what we feel and intuit from trees.

The Web of Fall

If you live in the Northern hemisphere, and you've been to the woods recently, you might have noticed that things feel a little bit different than they did a month ago. The leaves are on the ground. The branches are more and more bare. There is a sense of peace. And yet there is busy activity, too. The squirrels are racing around, trying to find enough to take them through the winter. Here in Southern Ontario, the starlings are gathering in huge flocks that fly in seemingly random, but coherent patterns, like giant airborne schools of fish. Wild geese are calling to each other in the evening skies.

Calm and a sense of preparation mingle at this time of year. This is a season of culmination, and a season of planting new seeds. After all, this is when the trees and grasses do their planting. Why shouldn't we?

This is the energetic new year. This is the end of one energy cycle in the natural world, and the time of preparation for the next. If you're thinking about resolutions, now is the time.

Throughout the summer, the trees have been working on building themselves up physically. This has meant drawing abundant energies from the earth, and drawing equally abundantly from the sun. As the autumn equinox approached, the trees prepared to release their energies in great gouts upward into the sky. What we see as the release of leaves is only the aftereffect of this energetic release, a ritual that they call "releasing the sun," as the solar energy retreats from the earth, and we enter the dark half of the year.

Now, throughout the autumn, the trees concentrate their energies in their trunks. They glow and pulse with light, and create an interconnecting web as they commune with each other. These energies will reach a climax at the winter solstice, when the trees will re-seed Mother Earth through energetic taproots that they've also been creating at this time.

Until then, they'll celebrate the end of another successful year with each other, communicating via webs that spread across continents. When we walk in the woods at this time of year, and appreciate the leaves and the beauty of the bare branches, we become part of the web. This, I think, is why any hiker will tell you that fall is one of the most glorious times to be outside and among trees.

So get out there!  Spend time with the trees right now, and enjoy some of the richest, most uplifting energies that are available throughout the year.

Tree Talk: An Introduction

If you enjoy the outdoors, at some point you've probably admired the beauty and grandeur of trees. It's hard not to. The giants that stand along your city streets, shade your backyard, and bend - more often than they break - under the storms of winter are all around us, a (mostly) silent presence.

In the last year and a half, I've come to know trees like I never thought possible. It's high time that I shared some of this information with others. 

If you come here as an environmentalist, prepare to find new fuel for your philosophy. If you're already working with energy, if you're a healer, spiritual seeker, or you're walking the shaman's path, I hope you find information here that's useful to you. If you tend to be a skeptic, welcome! I hope you'll enjoy your time with me. Whoever you are, take off your shoes, relax, and feel the cool earth under the soles of your feet for a while. 

In some ways, my journey into the secret world of trees is a culmination of studies I've been pursuing for the last fifteen years. When I was in my twenties, I began taking tai chi classes. The instructor talked a lot about energy, which I thought at the time was pretty weird, but the workouts were the best I'd ever had. I walked out of class on Friday evenings with my legs wobbling like noodles and feeling totally high. Over the years, I came to understand the subtle and not-so-subtle internal movements that accompanied tai chi practice as more than just physical. I began to feel chi, or vital life force, for myself. 

Last year, I decided to get attuned to Reiki, an energy healing modality that originated in Japan. I'd recently begun to assemble my own tai chi classes in Hamilton, Ontario, and I thought that Reiki might be a handy tool for helping my students. I also wanted to be able to work on my friends and family, including my pets, a Boston Terrier and a middle-aged cat. Really, my decision to take Reiki felt at the time like an open, breezy, "why not?" sort of a thing. 

During the level one workshop, Carol Glenn, who runs RoseHeart Wellness Therapies in Oakville, Ontario, mentioned that one of the many things you could do with Reiki was use this healing energy on trees. She told us that when you Reiki a tree, you can feel the tree's energy moving through the trunk. 

"Cool!" I thought. I already spent a lot of time hiking with my dog on a local stretch of the Bruce Trail. I planned to try offering Reiki to a tree the next chance I got.

The day after the workshop, I went out for a hike in my favourite patch of woods with my best friend. I was telling her about Reiki, and remembered that I could work on trees. I decided then and there to try it. I stopped at the tree closest to me, and rubbed my hands together to engage the Reiki energy. I explained to my friend that when the energy flowed, your hands would often get hot, and you could feel a wave of energy flow down through the top of your head and out through the hands. I showed her how my hands were already very warm, even though I hadn't begun to do Reiki on the tree.

I hovered my hands over the bark of the tree. 

Nothing happened. The energy stopped flowing. 

"That's weird," I said. "I wonder why that didn't work?" I looked up.

The tips of the tree's branches were bare, cracked and dry. The tree was dead.

I went on to another tree, making sure to select a living one. As I began offering the tree Reiki, the energy flowed abundantly. At the same time, I felt the need to take in a long, slow, deep breath. I felt at peace. This seemed like the exact right thing to do.

For the next couple of months, I gave Reiki to trees once or twice a week. The side trails that I like to hike are muddy, bumpy, and usually depopulated, so my dog and I could wander for an hour or two without seeing another person. Birds, squirrels, and the occasional deer were the only witnesses to my early attempts to Reiki trees. It seemed like an enjoyable pastime. It gave my dog some much-needed time to sit and chew sticks - his favourite hobby - and it gave me a chance to work on my developing Reiki skills. It seemed that the energy always flowed freely when I began treating a tree, but it would quickly begin to move in directions I didn't expect: I'd find myself suddenly dropped into the ground, my legs heavy and my feet feeling as if they were sinking a few inches into the dark soil. Or I would feel inspired to look up to the very top of the tree. I'd imagine floating up there, perched on one of the towering upper limbs. 

One day, I came across an old, extremely tall maple. One of its neighbours had blown over in a windstorm, and was leaning heavily on this tree. I felt sorry for both of them. I wondered if the magnificent fallen tree would take its fellow down with it. I figured that here I'd found a tree in distress. Most of the trees I'd dealt with over the summer didn't really seem as if they needed healing. Maybe this tree did. Reiki to the rescue!

I began with placing my hands on either side of the tree's trunk. It dawned on me that it might be a good idea to let the tree know about my intentions toward it. Without thinking it through too clearly, I simply reached out with my mind, and began to address it.

"I'm here to help you." I thought the words clearly and distinctly. I watched as a daddy longlegs and several ants climbed up and down the rough bark. "Are you in any pain?" 

Without any hestitation, a message reverberated through my mind, as clearly as if someone had shouted in my ear. "This is what it is to be free: the little brothers depend on you, and it doesn't matter."

I felt that the tree's "little brothers" included not only the large tree that had fallen over, but the insects that crawled on its trunk, and the birds that might perch on its upper branches, as well as a number of organisms I was probably unable to see.

I checked myself. Had I made up this statement? The sentiment was so totally contrary to my concern for the tree's wellbeing. Plus I felt as though the tree was offering not a reassurance, but an object lesson. It wanted to correct my thinking. It was throwing philosophy at me, not confirming any ego impulse I might have. In fact, it was crushing my pretensions to helping it. In that single, brief exchange, that first tree showed me that it had much more to offer me than I had to offer it.

I spent a few more moments with my hands on its trunk. Although energy was still moving through me, I was no longer certain that I was moving much healing light through my hands. I suspected that I had lost control of the exchange. I carefully and gently disengaged from the tree's energy. Before I walked away, I bowed deeply, thanking the tree for offering its wisdom. 

As I walked home, with my dog bounding after me, I thought about the information the tree had shared, and I noticed that I felt much more buoyant - even elated. In one statement, the tree had handed me a key to a major conundrum: how to deal with other people. I'd always felt a little bit scornful toward the people in my life who struggled over things I'd already figured out how to handle. I never felt much patience toward them. But I saw by the tree's example that if you're really strong, it doesn't matter who depends on you. It makes no difference at all. It does not take away your freedom to take a moment and help others.

I wondered what else the trees had to offer. I continued to Reiki trees throughout the summer and fall of 2009. Always, I tried talking to them. Even when I was just walking, I would often say "Hello" out loud to trees that looked especially friendly. It's amazing where "Hi, how are you?" can get you, even in the world of trees. In greeting and honouring wild things, we're identifying ourselves as more than just another ignorant human. 

The trees responded in abundance. Many times, I didn't receive their messages as words, but as corrections to my energy. Often they showed me how to be more rooted, helping my energy sink down into the earth and settle. One late summer evening, a particularly ebullient maple said to me, "Want to feel what it's like at the top?" Despite the chill in the air, I found myself flushed with heat as the tree shared the warmth of the sun that had accumulated in its leaves.

A gnarled oak was the next to share something truly profound with me. "If anything's going to move forward, you have to come to us," she said. A hollow spot in her roots looked like a tiny doorway to another world. Her words blew me away. She meant that we - humans - have to be willing to step into the woods again. We have to remember that trees are our brothers, and we have to greet them as such. The first thing that they want from us is acknowledgement and appreciation. Not in an abstract way: in an up-close-and-personal way. 

I sat with the oak's advice throughout the fall. By the time winter was settling in, I'd made a resolution. I decided that I would go into apprenticeship with the trees. By that point, I'd started talking with a huge Black Oak that I would come to call Brother Oak. He had begun to share in words and imagery the story of the life cycles of trees: how they shifted energetically from season to season, and what they remembered from the deep past. I decided that I would take a year, from winter solstice 2009 through to winter solstice 2010, to talk with trees on a regular basis. I would write down what I learned, maybe fashioning it into a book. I wanted to understand the trees' annual rhythms. I wanted to know them, as individuals, as species, and as a collective. I wanted to understand their perspective on human chi or energy. 

My experiment is almost over. I've recorded dozens of interactions with oaks, pines, maples, birches, ashes, hawthornes, walnuts, cherries, and apples. I've come to understand the ways that trees work with the energies of the sun and the earth to help perpetuate the turning of the seasons. I've experienced the incredible benevolence and generosity of our giant brothers of the woods. And I've become utterly convinced that it's important to share the information I've begun to gather now, and not to wait.

Little did I know when I began to work with trees, that I would also be given a tree's eye view into some of the powerful energy shifts that are occurring right now. Don't get me wrong: this is not a proclamation of impending doom, nor is it a 2012 prophecy. I can only speak to the prevailing energies that are surging in powerful waves from the earth, and from the heavens right now. If you're any kind of energy worker, this is a thrilling time. If you'd like to become more open and explore your spiritual being like never before, the time is now. More and stronger energies are coming available all the time. And the trees have all kinds of insights to offer into how to use these energies. 

I want to use the space of this blog to offer some of these insights to you. Welcome.