Let me seek, then, the gift of silence, and poverty, and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer:
Where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is in all.
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Dwarfed by both the height and the breadth of the coastal redwood tree she stood in front of, the guide gracefully swept her arm up and over her head as she spoke the words, “This is the Mother tree. Mother of this entire forest.”
The guide’s grand introduction was lovely, but unneeded. There was no mistaking the Mother Tree, even as she stood surrounded by her towering daughters and granddaughters. I stood a good 20 paces from her, at the back of the group of hikers, and still her massive trunk dominated my field of vision. Her bark was heavily ridged, and her gnarled buttresses spanned outward to support her towering, but slightly leaning, stature. Even her lowest branches were a dizzying height above my head, and the wind moved through them with a sound like rushing water. With each gust, small twigs clattered through the branches and fell around us, making soft but solid landings, reminiscent of large raindrops hitting water. Each fallen twig was tipped with tiny pinecones, each holding the seeds of future generations.
Her appearance and size spoke of her age, but she wore it well. Unmistakably, she was the matriarch of this family.
The guide invited the group to step forward and touch the tree and one by one, they did. One man spread his arms wide as if to hug the tree, but from where I stood still, at the back of the group, I could clearly see both hands; they didn’t come close to spanning the breadth of the tree. Most people just ran a hand down the bark. Their brief touch with history complete, they stepped away and moved down the trail, eager to see the next “attraction” on the trail.
When no one stood between me and the tree, I slowly stepped forward. Even as we had walked up the trail, I had felt my body’s urge to respond to her presence, a pull that called me to acknowledge her, to orient towards her. And now, when I had closed less than half the distance between us, I felt the full force of her aura. Sacred. Serene. Feminine. Ancient. Holding the secret of life.
There was no possible response except reverence. I had felt this quality of being only once before. In the presence of an esteemed Buddhist monk, I had felt this same depth of stillness, of peace, of quiet certainty, and of compassionate understanding. Grace radiated from this ancient tree, erasing awareness of all that was not of this moment, this encounter.
I bowed my head and whispered shyly, “May I approach you?”
To walk up to this esteemed elder without permission, without acknowledgment of her rights and her aliveness would have been as unthinkable as embracing the Dalai Lama with an unexpected bear hug…and yet I was confident both would have received the impertinent gestures with solicitude and patience. Such profound gentleness humbled me.
Sincerely awaiting an answer, and willing to accept that it might be a kindly offered “no,” I grew still and moved my attention inward. I was rewarded with a sensation of warmth and welcome flowing from the tree as if a great grandmother were opening her arms to a beloved but wandering child. I stepped forward until I stood with my feet at her base, between two of her buttresses, and tilted my head all the way back and looked up. Her trunk rose upward as if to touch infinity, it’s top lost in a sea of swaying green branches, even the lowest of which were still far, far above my head. Scanning my eyes down the length of the tree, they came to rest on the ridges of bark directly in front of me.
“May I touch you?” I whispered and a new wave of welcome and warmth flowed over me, along with a single word: “Gently.” With only the tip of my index finger, I began to lightly trace the top of one of the ridges. Eventually, I opened my hand and placed my palm lightly on her. She felt warm to the touch even though the forest floor where I stood was shaded and the day was cool. I placed my other palm on the bark next to the first. The feelings of love, acceptance, and compassion radiating from the tree were so intense I expected to see a golden glow emanating from under my hands as I stared at the spot where my palms rested.
So palpable was the sensation, so generous was the tree, that the iridescent warmth continued to flow, moving up my arms, and flooding into my torso. When it reached my belly, the warmth felt as if it coupled with something it found there, and I was fully inundated with the tree’s aliveness and awareness. She was aware of me and of herself…and more.
I felt her awareness of the creatures who called her home. I felt the sliding softness of the tiny spiders who built their webs in the ridges of her bark. I felt the small birds and how she enjoyed their songs and their games of chase; how she carefully held her branches that carried their nests. I felt the rapping of the woodpecker, like the annoying friend who insists on poking my arm to make a point. I felt the paws of the squirrels skirting through the branches like a light tickling. I felt the tree’s fondness for the gentle breeze that played with her branches like a lover playing with a lock of his beloved’s hair. I felt the magnetic pull of the sunshine and the tree’s stretch towards it. I felt her kinship with all the trees around her and her concern for their well-being.
I felt, too, the sensations from her roots and the creatures around them. These sensations were difficult to process, unfamiliar as they were to me, a creature who lacks such a relationship to the soil and its inhabitants. Moist, yielding, a hunger, a satisfaction. An awareness of the life here too, but also that the soil and the life in it are almost inseparable from the tree herself. Like trying to separate the air in my lungs from the rest of my being.
The guide said the tree was estimated to be about 1800 years old and the tree offered me a glimpse of her history, her observations of the world changing around her. The construction of the trail; the feeling of heavy machinery rolling over her roots and those of her extended family. The changes in structure and life around her. The parade of visitors and their responses to her. Her patient observation of all this and her compassion towards it, as well as the strength and adaptation through which she survived.
All of this came so quickly, so generously shared. The sensations rushed through my body and filled me with such a rush of joy I was left breathless. I bowed my head and placed my forehead on the tree between my hands. Words floated into my thoughts as if whispered in my ear. “You are a good person.”
I felt as though I had received a blessing, like when I was a child and the priest made the sign of the cross on my forehead and said, “Go in peace. The Lord is with you.”
I wiped tears from my eyes and stepped back, mouthing “thank you.” I stood before the tree with my head bowed and brought my hands together in front of my chest, remembering the teaching that one hand represents wisdom, the other compassion and both must be practiced together. I felt both in the tree, brought together in balance to create benevolence.
I bowed deeper and my gaze came to rest on the ferns and ivies which filled the gaps between the tree’s buttresses near my feet. I had felt their roots intertwined with the tree’s. I lifted my head and saw the spider’s web inside the ridge where my hand had rested. I titled my head all the way back to look up into the tree’s branches and I saw the birds. I saw a squirrel. I heard the clack, clack of a woodpecker and I felt a new tenderness for them all.
“Be well” I said to the tree and turned to follow the group, walking as if a bit tipsy, but with a new sense of peace, understanding, and awe. This tree was indeed “Mother.” What she shared with me, what she felt, was the epitome of the archetype “mother”—nurturing, attuned, giving of self while also standing firm in her own right. I’m not sure I would call the feelings she shared with me “love,” but I would certainly call them an all-inclusive benevolence towards not only her daughters, but the life she hosted and the lives she witnessed.
Later, I sat on the balcony of my room at the lodge, looking out. Just past the walkway below me the ground fell away steeply, and the landscaped grounds gave way to the forest. The drop put me at eye level with the upper branches of the trees, radiating varied shades of green where the late afternoon sunlight touched them. The lower branches were in shadow and I had to look carefully to see the dark crows who were calling to each other–or perhaps they were singing to the trees, or to me, or to anyone who cared to listen. Heard now through my new understanding, it was indeed a lovely sound, speaking of home and belonging.
The sun slipped lower as I listened to the crows, the wind, and the occasional sound of an airplane overhead, eventually becoming just a soft golden glow over the tops of the most distant trees where she paused, as if taking in the beauty of the land she illuminated.
How many sunsets just like this one must these trees have seen! While none of these were the Mother tree, they were all easily hundreds of years old. Thousands and thousands of sunrises and sunsets—cold, clear ones and heat-fueled stormy ones; each one beautiful and each one unique.
The enormity of the time these giants have witnessed left me dumbstruck. My life was so short in comparison, just a tick on their biological clock. And the memory of the tiny spider whose web spanned a single ridge in the bark of the Mother Tree floated back to me. That spiders’ life was probably only a matter of weeks, spent entirely in that ridge. That small space was the spider’s cosmos, and her whole life lived in a week. My cosmos is mostly my home city, and my lifespan is decades long. These coastal redwoods’ cosmos is the ground of their roots and the vast sky to which they lift their crowns. Their life span is centuries, perhaps millennia.
Does the size of the cosmos inhabited and the length of the life matter? On what grounds could anyone claim one life is more important than another?
Each is alive and each life, each lifespan, is equally important to its inhabitant. How could one be more valuable than the other? Each is a life, and every life wants to live. The Mother Tree knew this. She values every life she hosts and every life of which she is aware. I have no doubt about that, I felt it. Is the spider aware she lives on the tree? Perhaps not, but she knows the ridge is a good place for a web and to lay her eggs.
How could I have any less regard for any of these lives than I do for my own? Each is God’s unique creation, fashioned with equal attention and care. To see them, to know them, is to hear the words of prayer that each life uniquely speaks through its form and its life.
My life speaks a prayer too. It joins with the rest of creation where the prayers mingle, amplify, and harmonize, rising to God’s ears.
Every life is a prayer and mine is but one of them.
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Sharron Helmek is a Certified Forest Therapy Guide with the ANFT. You can learn more about our trainings here.