Tree Communion - Maple Pass - color-When walking in the forest, I am enchanted by the trees and feel a kinship with them not unlike the kinship I feel with fellow human beings.  I may come across a particularly wonderful tree and say “Hello old friend, it is so good to see you.  Look at you, look at you!  You are beautiful!”  Talking to the trees, talking to the birds and the natural world around us, deeply enhances our ability to experience our connectivity with our world.

Some may think it strange to talk with a tree, but let me assure you it is a reasonable as well as a productive, thing to do.  Our indigenous ancestors all communicated with the natural world and heard echoes back from it in the form of insights, knowledge, and wisdom.  Our ancestors knew they were part of Nature and that Nature was part of them.  It never occurred to them it would be strange for a plant to advise them how to heal their sick brother or sister.

Here is a simple way to talk to Nature which I enjoy.  Go for a walk in the park or just down the street from where you live.  As you begin moving along on your way, greet the natural world around you.  “Hello trees, hello bushes, hello ferns, hello sky, hello clouds, hello birds” and so on, acknowledging all that are there.  “Hello dragonflies, hello stones, hello houses.”  It is a wonderful thing.

Saying hello to the world around you makes you feel like we are all family and goes beyond your habitual way of interacting with the world.  In this way of being, we are all part of each others’ lives in a more conscious manner.  Connecting with Nature helps to wake up the part of us that is aware deep inside, that knows in our bones we are part of the same community – that we are one.  At a deep level beyond even the physical, we are living in a world of interdependency.

So don’t be shy.  Don’t think to yourself “What am I dong?  I must be off my rocker, I’m talking to a tree!”  Allow yourself the opportunity to try this experience and work with it over time.  With grace you will feel the medicine and see the wisdom of this path.  You will see it in the way you feel about yourself and the world around you.  It will bring forth that playful, innocent part of you that may have been hiding quietly within during the years since childhood.

The feeling of harmony and joy received from being outdoors comes back home and affects our lives in a wonderfully healthy way.  Repeated visits in nature increase this affect over time and improve the way we feel in our home life, in our social life, and even in our work life…