The secret lives of trees

Energy Exchange

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2015-08-06 09.06.34

Betty asks:

GCW, can you describe what will it feel like when someone sits at your roots or leans against your trunk?

If you are tuned in and aware, you will feel a sense of peace, like a soft blanket and a sense of being cared for and loved, recognized, wanted, accepted. It may feel as though your worries melt away and you are more relaxed. You will feel the magnetic energies of my existence drawing you to me for I love you! I delight in your being, I enjoy the exchange of energies between us.

Whether you know it or not, you are enveloped and held in this sweet bubble of my energy, and I am in yours. It is simply a gift of living on this earth in which all living things are made of energy and surrounded by their own bubble. They intersect, overlap, interweave, create amazing and beautiful patterns and play!

You are a gift to me when you come near. I feel the complex energies of you. In this way I feel that I know you on a deep level; beneath thought, beneath words, beneath appearances. Here we are one and can communicate and know each other.

When you allow yourself to tune in and exchange energies with me, we are enriched and refreshed. And I am HAPPY!

Lessons for a tree whisperer

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GCW

GCW

C of Urbandale, Iowa asks:

Q. Is the red oak in my back yard dead? I planted it a year ago.

A. Dear C, I will not tell you because then you would not discover your gifts as a tree and plant whisperer. You must discern this for yourself. Get yourself into a quiet state. Put your hands on your heart and breathe deeply. Let your awareness come into your body. Release thoughts.

Now stand near the tree and touch it if you like. Ask the question and allow the energy of the tree to answer you. You may hear words, see pictures, or simply know the truth deep within you. You may feel an emotion or feeling in your body.

Do this with other trees and garden plants near your home and the soil and grasses. Practice! All these living beings have tales to tell that will amaze and delight you! You must drop all doubt and skepticism, all fear of being seen as a kook or nut case. Those who label you have not the exquisite sensitivity, are not attuned to the frequencies of earth and plant spirits as you are!

Trust yourself! Practice your superpower! Enjoy

What can I learn?

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2015-08-05 19.02.13

J of Ames, Iowa asks:

Q. What can I learn from you?

A. Can a lively woman full of energy, vigor, curiosity, passion and excitement for life learn from a tree? (I delight in my observation of you and your sparkling energy!)

I say yes! We can all learn from each other in this planet in which energies of every living thing are interwoven. All energies are one in the great web of all that is.

We appear so different. Those that classify and label things with your scientific accuracy, class you, a human woman, and me, a cottonwood tree at different ends of the spectrum of life forms – different branches on the cottonwood tree of life, so to speak. But we are both made of energy, energy that overlaps, interplays, affects the other.

Can you slow down enough- can you learn to tune into the tree energy  of who I am? Can you feel the joy with which I exist? Can you feel the delight, the exuberance of my being as I reach for the sun with my branches and the core of the earth with my roots? Can you learn to tune into and communicate on a new frequency? Can you open to this foreign and perhaps woo woo experience? You will have the entire population of trees at your back as you do your powerful healing work.

Powerful energy and powerful new knowledge will flow through you. It will not take the form of words or thoughts. It will take the form of feelings and sensations and the flow of new energies.

You are a life long learner, and you will never be done learning, no matter how many lifetimes you live. Welcome to a new dimension for your exploration!

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!

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!

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!

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.

Beautiful things

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2013-01-01 00.00.00-17

P of Des Moines, Iowa asks:

Q. What is the most beautiful thing GCW has witnessed?

A. I feel the energies of all beings as we are all connected in the magnificent web of creation. The exhilaration, the throb and pulse, the ebb and flow of the energies of life are known to me. They are unseen to most, but real – the building blocks of your visible and palpable world.

As I witness, I too am a participant. I feel and know the heart expanding love of a mother for her baby as they pass under my branches. I feel the pure joy in flocks of birds as they dance in synchronized motion, the effortless soaring of vultures as they spread their wings on hot sunlight and fly figure eights high above my crown. The earth thawing, new life unfolding each spring. Ever the same cycle, always new life. Fresh. Green. Eager.

The little barred owl that visits and feeds nearby, keeping me company on short summer nights; the dance of stars and planets; the woodpecker’s call. The rain pouring down, cleansing my leaves, flowing over my bark, filling my thirsty roots; the falling away of dead branches that have served their life’s purpose. The delicate shell like fungus that takes its sustenance from the downed wood. It is all beautiful!

The intricacy of transparent insect wings; the flowers of spring, the fruits and seeds of summer and fall,the silence of winter; waving sunlit grasses; the feeding butterflies, spreading and folding their jewel like wings. Patient deer feeling in the valley. The happy sounds of children playing; nestlings calling for their supper from the nest. The flash of a bluebird; goldfinches feeding on the thistles. It is all beautiful!

The night sky, the sunset when day is done and the sunrise to promise a new beginning; this place in which I am rooted and make my home; this living earth that feeds and supports all life. This breathtaking green planet; mud and stone, water, bedrock, and molten metal, the foundation on which we exist. I have seen and felt all of this and it is all exquisitely beautiful!