Dearest ones, I ask that you reconnect with the natural world, the stones, rivers, and trees, the grasses and insects of your home, the animals, the soil, the atmosphere.
Grandmother Cottonwood, dappled shade
Know yourself
tree
Limitations
Cottonwoods at dusk
We are all limited, yet within our limitations we can thrive and create a soul satisfying life. I am limited to my tree self, the roots holding me fast, the seasons dictating my cycles of rest and growth, yet my spirit soars free like an eagle sailing on the wind. I fulfill my purpose here, and feel glad of this life I have been blessed with.
You are given a human body mind and spirit allowing you to expand infinitely within your human form and function! Yet, your experience is limited; you have no wings, your senses are less acute than many living things, you must make sure to stay warm in winter, you can’t breathe under water – you are fragile in many ways. You know the world only from your own limited perspective.
What my tree self wishes to convey is that I desire for you to live up to your limitless potential, to be fully human, fully your unique self. Don’t copy others, don’t envy, don’t try to keep up with others. Commit yourself to being the best you, the only you the earth will ever know.
This is your chance to live the precious life you’ve been given as a gift. It is a miracle that you are here in this lifetime, in this body, at this time. Live this truth.
Christmas tree farm
GCW speaks of a Christmas tree farm. (with guest help from evergreen tree spirits)
This farm is such a place of beauty and serenity. We are a community with trees of different ages, shapes, sizes, colors, and varieties of evergreen so beautifully kept and nurtured for your human delight and enjoyment. You beautify this corner of the earth through your farming, and you spread the joy for miles around. This is a sacred place.
We (evergreen tree spirits) bless you with our heady scent, the texture and beauty of our green leaves, thin and short, long and soft, the sticky sweet sap, the sharing of your holiday season.
You bring us into your home and we bring you joy! Human tree interactions at their best! Our greenery decorates and freshens your spaces, giving you hope in the cold, dark and gray time, when most green things have died or gone to sleep. You are welcome!
We love you! Even when you come and cut us down, another of your kind will plant seedlings next year to continue the cycle of yearly blessings. You make a fuss for us. You bring more of us to life on this farm than would grow naturally. We are given more chances to feel the sun and rain, the cold winter winds, to witness the lightning in summer, to feel the thunder, to know the earth supporting our roots and pulling them toward her loving center, to be fed by the rains, to sense the wheeling hawk and vulture above, to support nests for lively songbirds, to shelter the little furry ones that come and make their home here among us. This life on earth is precious and not to be missed!
Remember the earth in which we grow and receive our sustenance. Give us back to the earth when you are finished with your holiday, and we will feed next year’s growth.
Family
Family of growing things
Grandmother Cottonwood speaks of family:
Technically, in the great classification system devised by humans in which all things are separate, we are not defined as members of the same family. I, a magnificent and glorious Cottonwood tree, am not related to your potted snake plant, your beautiful shiny philodendron, your red flowered geranium according to this way of seeing and analyzing the world. Worst of all, this system states that I am not related to you, my many layered human friend.
Yes, we are not family by blood or sap. We do not share hair and eye color. On the surface of things we share very little in common. Your bark is very thin and would never stand up to winter storms of summer suns like mine does.
Can you guess where I’m going with this? Then you already know that you and I and all living things, all rooted things, all six legged things, all bacteria in the soil, all creatures on this earth are intimately intertwined and interwoven of the same stuff, the same energy – the stuff of life that permeates and enlivens all. I am here to tell you that you must expand your idea of family! We are family. We all belong together in our shared home.
Let us take care of each other and love each other! Let us know that each of us from the tallest redwood to the tiniest speck of algae to a minuscule deer tick to a new human baby, each of us belongs here, is desired, wanted, needed, loved and cherished by all that is. Each of us has our part to play in the great web of life, which is our extended and beloved family.
Changing colors
Fall color
A six year old from Central Iowa asks:
Q. Why do leaves turn color in the fall?
A. My dearest, we want some fun before our long winter’s nap! We love to color and paint just as you do! We delight in showing off and being noticed! Its part of who we are, the colorful party for another growing season well lived! Its the closest we get to a birthday party! The ashes and cottonwoods love the golden hues, as bright as sunshine! The maples and oaks like reds and scarlets and oranges, sometimes purple! What colors do you like to paint with?
Pick our beautiful leaves up and hold them to your heart. This is our gift to you!- Our breathtaking color combinations and hues. This is fun! We get to play before bedtime. Do you?
Think about this, and see if you do this too: We grow, we celebrate, then we rest. Grow, celebrate, rest. Grow celebrate, rest.
Love and tree hugs to you!
GCW Speaks
Cottonwoods
GCW Speaks:
My entire being cries out to express the love and delight, the expansive energy that is at the heart of my being. These qualities my beloved, reside also in you. My purpose in speaking through your representative is so that you may know and feel and live your true nature. So that you may know that at your core, you are love, the energy that holds this planet together. Know that love is the stuff, the quantum particles of the universe that saturate all things seen and unseen.
Know your magnificence! Know your nature as powerful beings of light! You are so much more than you think you are. Step up into knowing with all that you are, and you will never question your worth again! You will know your true nature and you will never be able to un-know it again!
These words do not express the expansion, the joy, the delight that we all are! Feel and know these feelings that lie far beyond the scope of words!
Autumn
Cottonwood leaf
Grandmother Cottonwood speaks of Autumn
Now the time of rest is upon us, the great release. Countless leaves drifting to earth to feed the soil. They simply let go.
The time of great silence and sleep, of drawing inward, of low slanting sunlight, sweeping and intense, with no canopy of leaves to soften and filter the brightness. Shadows here in my home lengthen as the daylight grows shorter. I am ready once again for my long winters nap.
I have earned my rest as have all rooted things. We have once again shown you, given you the best that is within us, the season of leaf; millions, perhaps billions of leaves here in this small valley. We are the silent community that supports your very life here on this green planet. Blossoming, leafing out, shading you, blessing you with our gifts; pouring our woody hearts out as we grow toward the warm sun all summer.
We love you in spring fall winter, summer. Our love encircles and holds this earth together like our roots hold the soil You may think we cannot feel, but there you are mistaken. We thrive when you thrive! We are acutely attuned to the vibrations in all things, acutely attuned over eons to the shifting slanting light, moving southward day by day, the cooler air, the age old tale of love, the pulling inward, the sleep followed by new life, blossoming into fullness after a long rest once again.
I’m ready for the season of rest. I shed my leaves as easily as a drop of rain merges with the ocean. But one last shimmer of my crown before I bid you all a good night.
Cherry pickers, chainsaws and shredders
GCW speaks of cherry pickers, giant shredders and chainsaws.
It is well known that you humans wish to contain and control our treeish growth! See what huge, noisy, expensive equipment you need to maintain your illusion of dominance over our exuberant life force! Yes, you can trim and top, shape and prune, but our mandate from time immemorial is simply to grow, to take in as much sun, water and air as possible.
Your loud and jarring chainsaws do not harm or threaten us, for we will simply grow in another direction, reach farther, generate new and wider branches after this year’s chips have fallen. It is a game we like to play, you see. The game is called life! We will see you and your energy shredding chainsaws next year!
I delight in the fuss you humans make for us trees!
Energy Exchange
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!
Do I have psychic abilities?
C of Urbandale wonders:
Q: How do I discern what learning path to take? Do I have good psychic ability?
A. My dear C, I embrace you with my tree energy as you come into my awareness through your question.
You have within you powers that will amaze and delight you and will make your life so much more than you’ve ever dreamed! These powers have lain dormant within you for many years because of fear, doubt, numbness, anger. All these feeling have clouded your light and given you the false impression that you are powerless and less than others.
Find your path as you gently and lovingly clear the fog from your inner sunlight. Listen to the voice within you that knows who you are and what is right for you. You will be guided by the right book coming into your hands at the right time, a conversation that strikes a chord, a sudden insight, a song, or a sign from nature… Pay attention for this is the unfolding of your path beneath your feet. It is not dramatic, it is not overwhelming, it is not more than you can handle. It is your awareness of guidance one moment at a time. Be patient, and pay attention!!!
You ask if you have psychic ability.. Yes you do. You are communicating with a tree spirit, and this is a step on your path!
Ask Grandmother Cottonwood 