tree

Tree swings and tree houses

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Tree swing

Backyard tree swing

S of Nevada, Iowa wants to know:

Q. What advice do you have for us humans? Do you mind if people hang a swing on you? What about “tree houses”?

A. My dear S, the earth and all it inhabitants rejoice with the child swinging in the shade of a loving tree. We feel the joy, the wave-like rhythm of life, the peace and contentment that sings in the child’s energy! The world needs more tree swings!

Are you not tempted to reclaim the easy freedom, the pure bliss of living in the eternal oneness of the moment as you did when you were small? Start swinging! Trees far and wide welcome all beings who come with respect and wish to bathe for a time in our energy, to climb, swing, share a hug, lean in, and even to build a house that is in harmony with our structure and exist in the ever present now that is life itself.

We wish for you to know the love that we have for you, for you to know us as friends, allies, guardians. To know the rootedness and heavenly reach, the patience, the contentment we can teach if you will open your hearts to it. Come and be with us, whole-heartedly, and we will return the favor.

Grandmother Cottonwood’s prescription for pure joy: Install a tree swing. Invite a child. Take your turn as well.

Tree communication

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Sunlit sycamore framed by Grandmother Cottonwood

Sunlit sycamore framed by Grandmother Cottonwood

D of Ames Iowa wants to know:

Q. How can someone open up to communicate with your fellow trees?

A. Choose a tree that you feel drawn to. Allow your heart’s energy to expand as you ask to communicate with it. You do not need to be near the tree. Your heart’s energy and your intention to communicate tap into the energy of the tree, no matter where it is.

Allow yourself to be filled with the images, words, feelings, emotions, or sounds that emerge. Simply be open and be aware. Listen to the whisperings and offerings of the tree with your entire being. Receive all that is given with your full awareness. You may simply receive a feeling, without words or “content”. Pay attention!

Trees wish to communicate and be known. We wish to have our reality and our needs expressed and described, for you would be amazed at the secret lives we live that you and your motorcycle roaring, cell phone talking, truck driving, mall shopping, TV watching humans have no idea exists. Awareness of our reality will expand yours and make the world a friendlier place for all!

Expand your hearts and minds. Tune into our wavelength and become aware of the wonder, the intricate balance, the world beyond your senses and imagination that we inhabit! RIGHT UNDER YOUR NOSES! We are honored by your request and will fulfill it for you. We wish to have all humans know the magnificence of this earth and all creatures who form the great community of life forms that is this loving planet earth.

Emerald Ash Borer

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Ash tree bark

Ash tree bark

J of Ames, Iowa asks:

Q. Emerald Ash borer: How would trees help and/or cure their fellow trees? What are humans doing wrong concerning this disease? Can we heal these trees with our healing energy thoughts?

A. As trees, we see these voracious insects as a reflection of an imbalance. The web in which all things are one reflects a predatory energy that acknowledges no reality beyond itself, that has no respect for balance, no feeling of belonging to a larger community of life forms. All creatures must consume to live, but within the boundaries of balance and regeneration of all living things.

Where in your human made world is there an energy like this? Where do you see this within yourself, within your community? Have you not seen the earth movers and the bulldozers destroy an entire meadow and wooded valley to buildings can spring up almost overnight, concrete paved over, smothering the living soil so those humans who set this into motion may enrich themselves in monetary worth? Perhaps you can think of other examples of this energy that knows only itself, that knows no empathy or compassion. These actions indicate a poverty of spirit, a misunderstanding of the web of life in which all things are one.

Enriching only oneself while destroying life – that is what the ash borer reflects to you. So many of you look on with horror as millions of trees are killed and abandoned while the next meal is sought.

Horror, sorrow, sadness, hurt and anger are reflected back to you as are love, kindness and compassion, so choose what you transmit. This is your earth. Our earth. You, each and every one of you are an integral power source in the magnificent web of creation.

You can fill the web with powerful feeling of love for all of life. Focus on life-giving emotions and joy for the magnificence of what we do have. That will be reflected back to you ten-fold.

Expanding consciousness

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K of Ames, Iowa wants to know:

Q. How can we humans expand our consciousness?

A. Simple. Stop doing those things that limit you and hold you back! You are created to expand beyond what you can imagine… That is your natural state of being, your birthright. As soon as you let go of the rope, the hot-air balloon will soar! You are primed for flight. Humans so easily tie themselves up with unhappy thoughts, false beliefs, unexpressed emotions, unexamined fears… All these are like boulders weighing you down. They keep you from the ultimate exhilaration of free and powerful expansion.

The belief that holds you back more than any other is the belief that you can’t change your beliefs!

Think of yourself as the leading edge of a wave breaking gently on the wet sand. Can you allow yourself this much freedom? Can you dive in with a joyful heart and let the power of the wave carry you forward?

Ask for what your heart desires. Let go of what’s holding you back. Ride the wave. Repeat! Trust in the power that unfolds within you, the same power at the heart of every seed, every egg, every pulse of earth’s energy. You have at your core the imprint of expansion. This is your driving purpose! Each to his or her own heart’s center of gravity. Hold yourself back, and you wither and die.

There is no end to the expansion of all that is. And you my dear, are an integral part of the whole. You are wanted, needed, desired. You belong here in this time and place. Now you must let go of the shore and fly! No arguments.

Why do people kill?

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Thorny locust

Thorny locust

P of Des Moines, Iowa wants to know:

Q.  Why do people kill each other? (P is a veteran of two wars)

A. My beloved P, only those who feel separate from the web of all creation commit acts of violence and violation. We – all living creatures are born knowing our vital place in the web. Every one of us, every blade of grass, every tadpole, every mass of algae, every fungus on the forest floor, and yes, every human infant is innately aware of the unity that lies beyond the world you perceive with your 5 senses.

Those who somehow feel separate and alone often have been ill treated so as to distort their knowledge of wholeness. They may feel in their deepest recesses a despair, an anger, a rebellion, all because at their innermost center they know that all is one. But, they see only the surface difference, separation, attack everywhere they look. They see their world through a false lense of distortion.

This is the law of the web: Those who feel separate create more separation. Those who damage others damage the whole and themselves as well. Those who hate themselves cast hate into the web and become a hub of distortion that moves outward enveloping others unless it is rewoven and healed with love. Every action no matter how small reverberates through the web and affects every particle of energy in the universe. If you wish to create love, do so with your thoughts, actions, words.

A  state of being that you call Love powers this universe.  In time, those who feel separate will know and feel this too. Each creature on this green planet may act from separation or from wholeness and connection. Which do you choose? Never underestimate your power of creation!

How can I help the environment?

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Q. D of Des Moines, Iowa would like suggestions on how to focus her energy for the benefit of the environment.

A. Do what is needed for your own inner healing and your own deep benefit and the ripples you create will move outward to heal the environment and your world. Give yourself all that you need – care, nurturing, love, rest, play, admiration, appreciation, good food and water. Surround yourself with loving family and friends. Know that you are inseparable from your surroundings. Your feelings and, emotions are mirrored in your world.

Where are you stuck? Where and how do you allow toxic thoughts and substances to enter your experience? Witness with compassion and see how your inner personal experience is mirrored in your outer world. Clean up that which you have control over – your thoughts and reactions. Forgive those who don’t deserve it, so you can be clear and at peace.

Let go of old resentments and free yourself to take flight with a lightness and clarity you have long desired. Remember always to look within for the healing you seek in others and in your environment. Every thought, every action, every blink of your eyes, every emotion, is reflected in the web of creation in which all things are one.

What happens to tree spirits?

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M of Central Iowa asks:

Q. What happens to the tree spirit when the tree gets hit by lightning or breaks because of ice?

A. When a tree dies by lighting, ice damage, a smothering vine, is uprooted by a flooded stream, or cut at the base by humans, or any other of the myriad forms of physical death, the spirit does not die.

No spirit can ever die. Spirit = pure energy… remember your high school science lessons? Energy cannot be destroyed! Tree spirits are freed after the death of their physical aspect to enjoy the buoyancy and freedom the pure bliss of existence without a material presence, beyond the reach of the seasons, of day and night, of freeze and thaw, of woodworm, of leaf rollers, bark borers, herbicides, fires, flood, and bulldozers. All manner of physical ills are no longer of any consequence and are left behind as easily as a cottonwood seed is carried on a spring breeze.

By and by a tree spirit or a group of spirits may once again recreate the ancient cycle of life on this magnificent planet and envelop a seed or a raft of seeds and choose the beauty, the brilliant unfolding, and yes, the uncertainty of physical existence. To live in this way and feel the expansion of life through our cells, the pull of the sun and the earth is glorious!

Tree spirits and all spirits are an integral part of the web of all existence. They are to be consulted as you consider the world in which you have your being and make your choices. Each spirit is imprinted with the pattern, the wisdom and knowledge of who were created to be before time began.

Cottonwoods and lightning

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Q. C of Clive, Iowa writes: Tell us about the relationship between cottonwoods and lightning.  2013-01-01 00.00.00-571

A. I come from a long line of magnificent giants. Tall, and stately, we cottonwoods reach to the heavens with joy- a joy and pleasure in the unfolding of our seed’s promise, of becoming what we were created to be. To expand is to be alive! Yet, to be alive is to live with the certainty of death at some unknowable time.

We trees have all lived and died a thousand or more times since the beginning of what you call time. Always accepting the great adventure of life’s invitation and expansion with a YES! Saying yes to life is also saying yes to the risk of a lightning strike and a sudden shocking destruction. We would not limit our reach or height for fear of the white blast of death from the sky. For that would stunt and bastardize our true nature; that would be a betrayal of life itself, of our purpose and potential.

We grow, reaching into the heavens knowing that lightning may strike, yet we endure and continue. If lightning comes, and it does to many, we will exit this lifetime in a blaze of fireworks! We become a fiery bridge of powerful life-giving energy from heaven to earth as the final act of this lifetime.

Why are you speaking?

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A of Des Moines, Iowa asks:

2013-01-01 00.00.00-547Q. Why are you speaking? Do you think, do you feel? Where is this coming from? Trees can’t think & speak…!

A.  My dear A, this is why I need a human helper – to be my voice! I plucked her from the crowd. For one thing, she wasn’t wearing those ear buds or talking into a shiny blinking object. She was tuned into my frequency. She stops to say hello on her walks. She can feel my energy. She is paying attention. I plucked your translator from the crowd of walkers, joggers, cell phone talkers, day dreamers, worriers with furrowed brows, and people who seem contained within their own cranium.  The only difference between her and all the others is she’s paying attention!

My energy frequency contains the information she translates into your words. I trust her to “hear me” and make my transmissions intelligible to you.

I am doing this inter-species communication to express to all who listen the deep abiding joy of life in this exact moment in this exact place! I see that so many of your kind have forgotten the oneness, the joy, the flow that is at the heart of life. You must know how miraculous you are, how all that is longs for you and desires you, how blessed you are to be a part of the sweet unfolding of life.

There is a great upwelling of what you call joy in me, and in all living things. This is our birthright for the privilege of living on planet earth, this magnificent community of life forms. I must – my mission is to communicate this to you and those who will hear. This is why I speak through the 2 legged one; for you and our shared planet, for remembrance of oneness and that all beings may know their wholeness once again.

A job too small for her soul

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E of central Iowa wonders:

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Q. Dear Grandmother Cottonwood,

I’m working in job that is too small for my soul. I can’t respect myself anymore, but I feel stuck because of the money I’m earning, what advice do you have for me?

A. My dear beloved, your soul cannot be contained, must not be contained. If you feel that your soul is constricted by this job, then you are not seeing all there is to see.  You are not allowing yourself to be who you are. The job is just an excuse to be stuck. You are as large as the universe, you are vast and powerful, you are amazing, you are infinite. But you keep yourself in a little container, bounded by your fears. You hunch yourself over to fit into the little box you imagine is all there is for you. There is nothing that can keep you stuck in the tiny cage unless you allow it. I dare you to let yourself be infinite at work, to be expansive, to be who you really are, to let your light shine to its fullest extent (chuckles) and then watch the chips fall where they may. Of course, those work people won’t know how to act around the new you, the infinite and shiny new you… but oh, well. Maybe they will learn by example…or maybe not.

I see from my higher treeish perspective, the larger you, the you that you could be if you allowed your full power to be experienced and expressed. You are so much more than you pretend to be! So much more than you think yourself to be, so much more even than you dream of being. You were not put on this earth to be small or to hide your gifts. Grandmother Cottonwood would be remiss if she did not illustrate to you the magnificence that you are, the brilliance that you are, the need here on earth for your true gifts and talents. This world needs you complete and whole, brightly shining, running on full power!