environment

Do trees heal?

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Tree as healer

Tree as healer

D of Ames Iowa asks:

Q. Do trees help heal people?

A. Our energy is beneficial to you! Do you not feel better after hugging us, laying in our shade, climbing among our branches, walking nearby, watching the shifting patterns of sun and shade beneath our canopies, and swinging from a tree swing?

Our energy is powerfully aligned with earth and heaven. We stretch toward our sun, the source of nourishment and allow our roots to be pulled deep into the rich dark earth without the holding back, hiding, embarrassment, or fear that hold humans from their true power. When you come near us you are bathed in this delightful life giving, powerful energy. Many of you sensitive enough can feel this energy.

We do not pluck those in need of tree energy from the crowd and force a healing on them. We simply are who we are and whoever is drawn near benefits from the power that emanates from us without effort; simply by trees fulfilling our life purpose- to grow from our seeds and be who we are.

You may purposely align with our roots and trunk and crown. Breathe with us, feel the stretch in your middle as you lift your spine and head toward the sun and allow your roots to be pulled into the earth as if by a magnet. Merge your energies with us for awhile. Feel what we feel and know what we know. We are your friends. Feel it! Feel our love!

Allow the energies of your being to flow joyously, freely, happily! We love you humans and all living things. We delight in you!

Talents and gifts

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Feather

Feather

J of Boone, Iowa Asks:

Q. How do we humans find our gifts and talents?

A. My dear J, the blueprint, pattern, and energy of who you are was encoded within your being long before your birth into this lifetime. Your talents and gifts are not like a birthday present that someone gives you to unwrap. They are intimately interwoven in who you are and the unfolding of your life.

Perhaps you are not sure what your gifts truly are. When you find an activity or idea that brings you joy and satisfies your soul to the roots of your toes, you are on to something! Look within and allow the unfolding of your interest to blossom. Use patience, for there is no need to rush. Everything occurs in its own time and season.

Allow the unfolding of your child’s gifts in the same way. Nurture those activities that bring them joy and light them up. Allow the unfolding like the unfolding of a flower. Think of a peony bud beginning as a tight hard green ball then softening and opening when the time is right; opening gently with petal after petal – a fulfillment of her sweet gifts and purpose here on this earth.

Trust that all you need is within you. Be guided by your feelings and your strong inner knowing. Follow your joy and bless this earth with your light!

Limited life span

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GCW

GCW

Betty writes:

Dear, Dear Grandmother Cottonwood, you have many broken branches and your crown is thinning. I dread to think of the end of your days some time soon.

My life force is strong and powerful as ever! I take delight in this existence, even more so, perhaps than a young sapling, for I have know all seasons, all weathers, all phases of growth and life. And still I delight, I take great pleasure in the sunlight feeding my shimmering crown, my magnificent structure, my admirable covering of thick back, protecting the soft heartwood of me. I delight in all creatures of the prairie and creek fringe that call this neighborhood home- the shiny black noisy crow, the fox, the vulture, the snake, the grasses, the milkweed, the mullein, the flying things with glassy or colorful wings that lift off and surrender their gossamer light bodies to the breeze.

Life! To be alive is my delight. To be the tallest among the community of trees and shelter all comers- this life feeds my soul and satisfies the deepest roots and heart of my being.

Even as you observe and worry about my age and my limited lifespan, I simply reach for the open sky and the core of the earth as is my reason for being. I am good at what I do!!! Until death comes, I delight in being fully alive! I take no notice of your human worry about what has not yet come to pass! Fretting, frowning, stopping up your hearts and blocking of your flow! That does not become you!

Trees like me, and all creatures live in the ever present now.  You can do it too!

Healing the Earth

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Red winged blackbird

Red winged blackbird

M of West Des Moines, Iowa asks:

Q. Are there certain places on this earth that need our healing energy and focus first? Is there a best priority to focus on?

A. Focus on that which is in your control. Focus the healing within your own heart first, for many humans are so outwardly focused you do not always see how your own unhealed hearts affect the web of all things. You do not need to be heroic, you do not need to range the globe and rescue anyone or anything outside yourself. Begin within your own heart, your body, your emotions. The waves of joy, of peace, of contentment that will flow from you will profoundly affect all particles of energy in this universe and this green earth home we delight in.

You are powerful! You are powerful beyond your understanding!

Nothing is outside yourself! All places you notice that are barren, eroded, flooded, plagued, diseased, paved over, or dying reflect something within you. Journey to that place in you and bring light and love to it so that no dark places remain within you- so that you become the light and know yourself as the hub of the great web of life in which all things are one.

When you are clear, others will come to you who will benefit from your energy. Those places on earth that will benefit from your clarity, your powerful love, like a column of light, will become known to you as well. You will need to make no effort. You yourself will have become the very peace, harmony, health and balance you seek for the earth!

Stones and shiny things

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Stone and foliage

Stone and foliage

GCW speaks of stones and shiny things.

You beloved creatures have built your world on a foundation of stones from the beginning of your creative time here in this great web of life to the shiny blinking mesmerizing objects you so love now. (Crows would love them too, but only for the shine.)

Your kind continues to invent, to improve, to tweak and innovate. It is who you are! Yet your bodies are much the same as they were when you hunted with flint tips and painted on cave walls. See the ancient hands silhouetted deep within the painted cave millennia ago. Now place your hand on that handprint- place yourself in that time and place. You are still that. You are still that physical being.

Are your bodies keeping up with the speed of your lives? Are you finding time to just slow down and soak in the exquisite beauty of existence that requires nothing of you; that allows you to know your primal roots? Do not allow your shiny creations, your conditioned air, your speed of thought, your rushing cars, your crowded marketplaces to keep you from knowing your integral place in the web of all things.

GCW wishes to see the great rifts created in the web of life mended, rewoven, made whole again. I ask you magnificent humans to make this so. With your creative abilities you can make this happen. Join the powerful energies of your hearts and reweave the circle of life. Be who you are created to be.

Let your true natures that began with your ancient ancestors shine forth. Let your energies sparkle and flow like ripples on a sunlit creek. Your love is the healer. This magnificent earth, our home, embraces you and all that you are, for you are dear, as dear as life itself.

GCW’s life story

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Grandmother Cottonwood

Grandmother Cottonwood

Grandmother Cottonwood speaks of her life as a tree.

The creek was much closer to my chosen place so long ago when what I knew was to fly on the breeze. I began as a tiny windblown seed that was carried to this precise place at the right time for my beginnings. All that a seed needed was here. Abundant rain, deep soil, the daily wheel of the sun blessing my growing with warmth and light. My seed knew it was home.

The unfolding of life began within my tiny seed before there were outward signs- silent unseen stirrings! (Life will not be denied or suppressed. It must have its way.) Roots being pulled as if by a magnet, uncoiling from deep within the blueprint of being that has served my magnificent ancestors for millennia. Then the great unfolding toward the light, always pulled toward the light, stretching between my two poles, the sun, giver of light above and the deep sustenance of the earthy soil below.

Each year after the season of rest, I grew taller, firmer, sturdier in my roots, broader, my woody bark growing denser and thicker. I began life with two tender leaves, and now I have countless leaves upon my crown each shaped like your symbol for the heart. See how much I love this life!!

Many creatures gathered around me as the years increased. Barred owl, dragonfly, squirrel, deer, vulture, field-mouse, tree-frog, all manner of songbirds and insects, spider, grasses, mullein, milkweed, willow, cockle-burr, thistle, violets, black-eyed susan, sycamore, oak, thorny locust. We are a community of life, our energies and forms interwoven with the ebb and flow of sunshine, shadow, moonlight, starshine, sudden driving rains, glorious heavenly blue skies. We feed each other, we shelter and sustain our web in this magnificent dance you call life.

I delight in my place here in this web of infinite beauty. I am one with all things.

Beingness

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Grandmother Cottonwood, summer moss

Grandmother Cottonwood, summer moss

 

Grandmother Cottonwood speaks of being.

For a tree, being is life.  All that occurs unfolds in the proper timing and season with no effort, no pushing no trying, no struggle.  My beingness is tuned intimately to the web of all things. The tiniest flicker of a spider’s leg as it spins it web, the insect eggs laid on my leaves waiting for their beingness to unfold are all know to me. I delight in my tree-ness!  The leaves of my crown shimmer with joy and I revel in this indescribable beauty!  Shifting patterns of dark and light flicker on my trunk and the earth at my rooty feet.  The shimmer of a cottonwood leaf sets the web of life singing!

Have you tuned in to the beingness that is your deepest self? Beneath the surface trappings, below the energy of thought, deep within your core, at your heartwood, lies the essence of you. You are this from lifetime to lifetime, beyond all measurement, beyond all death and decay. Nothing can alter your beingness!

Take a moment each day to feel and know this invisible indestructible, magnificent, infinite beingness, the foundation and roots of who you are in this lifetime! Let your leaves shimmer with joy!

Knowledge for the planet

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Toad

Toad

Bee of Ames Iowa asks:

Q. What is the greatest piece of knowledge you wish every person on our planet to know?

A.  To know with your hearts (not your heads – for they are overrated!) that you are blessed!  To know in every cell of your body that life is good!  To know with every particle of your being that you belong here!

You are the whole and part of the whole. You are the hub of the great web in which all things are one, and you are the filaments of the web.  You are directly involved in the exhilarating waves of joy, of feeling, of creation, ebbing and flowing throughout this finely tuned universe.

Every living thing has made a difference simply by choosing to come to earth in this lifetime; as a tree, rooting deeply to the earth, bringing up fruit and seeds from the elements of sunshine and rain and soil; as a bird soaring on the breeze and launching a clear sweet song into the silence; as a human, following your deepest passions, creating from the deepest core of your being; as a drop of water merging with the flow of the creek, as a blade of grass, turning toward the sun, as a toad silently watching for a tasty morsel, as a handful of silty soil on a creek-bank; as a stone patiently soaking up the heat of each day and releasing it at night.

Every particle of creation here upon the earth is good – everything is whole within itself and part of a larger whole.

You are meant to be here now! Allow yourselves to blossom into the fullness of your inborn potential and see how the web of all things responds to your being!

Joy!

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Pure joy!

Pure joy!

GCW speaks of joy:

You humans with your two strong legs, your powerful voices, your beating hearts, your exquisite hands, arms, elbows, shoulders, your graceful flowing movements, your smooth supple skin a tree like me can only dream of… your language, your nuance of tone and inflection, your impossibly beautiful music – You are magnificent creatures!

I see your beautiful energies interweave, intermingle, create new patterns and colors as you come together- even two strangers meeting on the path beneath my branches create fascinating never-been seen-before patterns of energy (and you think they didn’t even notice you).

All is energy. When it flows freely you feel joy; you become joy – you are lit up like the night sky studded with countless stars and a full moon, you are deep and infinite. You feel expansive as though you are one with all things, (and you are) and this feeling expands through your body moving every cell of your being to dance, to sing, to create effortlessly in the way most suited to your individual natures.

When you hold yourself apart from this flow, it is like beaching yourself on a sandbar, or to become a stone submerged deep at the bottom of a stream bed. But everything in this oneness affects everything else and the current will rise in flood and sweep the sandbar clean, or wear away the stone, releasing each particle again to dance upon the current of life in the endless cycle of creation and re-creation.

Let your energies sing as they are meat to! You are a vital part of all that is. You are meant to shine brightly and freely. It is time to cast off the clouds that dim your light and reach toward the sun! Your light is an integral part of this oneness we call life.

Do you feel trapped?

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Amazing roots

Amazing roots

K of Omaha, NE wonders

Q. Do you ever feel like you’re trapped because you are rooted to the ground?

A. I have chosen this life as a tree. Being rooted, sending my roots effortlessly toward the center of our magnificent mother, the earth, is simply who I am. I would not trade my rootedness, my anchor, my stability, my station in this life for anything.

This particular place where I am rooted is my home and will be throughout this lifetime. Here in this place all I need is freely given to me. The radiant life-giving sunlight from dawn to dusk each day – always the soft air, each day with a new quality, sometime mist and cloud, sometimes full on bright powerful heated light; the pink sunsets, purple and gold.; the colors of light that bathe me in their life giving energies and feed the countless leaves on my crown, sending the stuff of life coursing throughout my entire structure. Some days, the shimmering rains come, the lightning and thunder, followed by birdsong. These fragrant rains that soak my roots and feed every cell of my being are freely given. To receive these gifts is simply to be alive.

Perhaps your two legged self cannot imagine the exhilaration, the delight of my life, the expansion, the satisfaction, the joy, the awareness of all that is, the tuning in to the subtle energies of life beyond what humans can sense because my life experience is so different than yours.

You were created to move freely, to journey, to seek your daily bread in various ways. Many of you are restless in your movements and unsettled. Your lives are more complicated, take more maintenance than the life of a tree.

When your lives overwhelm you, take a breath and imagine yourself as a tree. Send your roots down to the core of the earth. Breathe life giving earth energies in to your center and allow your awareness to expand upward, riding a shaft of sunlight, or the trunk of a tree, opening into full expansion and delight at your crown.

Whatever life path you choose with your ease of movement, remember to stay rooted in your true purpose here on this sweet green earth that needs you and your gifts. Then you can expand with confidence and ease into you true nature. Be proudly who and what you were born to be. Take delight in the life your have created for yourself within the limits of your physical self.