From Trauma to Inner Peace
Miracles in Nature
Last week I wrote about my experience with grasshoppers during a time when my soul needed deep healing. Today, we’re taking a peek at everyday miracles that are happening before your eyes that may become a balm, soothing the pain buried in the hollow of your heart, and your sweet soul-energy.
As a shamanic practitioner and a (retired) shamanic teacher, I’m deeply disturbed when someone cannot recollect feeling even the slightest glimmer of love eminating from the dandelion’s bright yellow head, the brilliant reds and yellows of autumn’s maple leaves, the calming flow of ocean waves, or the sparkling vastness of the night sky.
These are merely a few, among billions of love miracles, for us to absorb, often right outside our door.
Sadly, because large numbers of women and men have been traumatized by abuse at the hands of a spouse, parent, sibling, and often a stranger, they’ve potentially shut down their emotional capacity; in many cases they’ve become numb, cannot feel the love eminating from lovers, friends, family, and the microscopic to humoungous living beings outside their door.
There is hope for the survivors of heinous abuses who, through no fault of their own, have forgotten their brilliant miraculous selves.
During decades of shamanic healing with clients and students, I’ve found that a person’s heart and soul is capable of returning to its original sparkly energy and sense of wonder.
Below is a simple exercise that I’ve found helps restore your sense of breathing, awakening to every moment of presence in your embodied life; regardless of whether your soul is weary from recent or past abuses; or, who like most of us, is in despair over the destruction of our magnificent planet, deaths by war, and our unstable political climate, there is hope!
I’ve found most people have a desire to feel their life force and to be in harmony with another living being; specifically, in this case, let’s try that with a tree
Begin by finding a tree of any size, approach it slowly, place your hands anywhere on its surface.
Plant your feet firmly on the ground; perhaps you feel the root’s energy travelling up from below the ground, into your feet; if you feel that energy, feeling flow up into your heart center.
Now, close your eyes and take at least three deep breaths; breathe in the sweetness of the air that surrounds you with its vitality; breathe out your weariness, your pain, your despair.
Open your eyes. Stand still while your hands remain on the tree; perhaps you feel comfortable placing your forehead against its bark
Maybe you release a few of your tears, panic, or pain;
Allow yourself to sigh,
Keep breathing;
Are you able to feel the tree’s energy, perhaps a sense of pulsing?
The tree is inhaling your weariness, transmuting it into pure love, exhaling its love for you.
For centuries shamans’ have been in constant communication with trees; asking them for advice or assistance with a personal or global concern, thanking them for their energetic presence. I, too, have had many long conversations with trees; I’ve found they don’t like being ignored, experiencing us as energetically rude when we don’t engage with them.
If you’re ready to experiment with this, while your hands are on the tree, begin a conversation. I suggest you begin with introducing yourelf with something like this:
Hi! My name is Dory and I’ve noticed you growing outside my bedroom window.
Will you forgive my previous rudeness? I sincerely want to develp a relationship with you.
Now, listen with your heart; watch the branches and leaves; do you see unexpected movement, like a nod or a hand shake?
If not, keep talking.
Within a few moments I believe you’ll feel the tree loving you, and/or energetically speaking with you
Developing a meaningful relationship with a tree requires consistently showing up while you place your hands on her, speak with her, listen for what she has to say, feel the energy she lovinging provides.
With time, I think you’ll have a new friend; a constant presence, a source of energy, power, and love.
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Kitty, Your message moved me. Your loss of your loving apple tree is tragic; and I do understand how a tree can be a therapist; this is also true for me. Bless your heart and thanks for taking the time to share your story with me.
I wept as I read this. This was both helpful and poignant. When I moved into subsidized housing, I could no longer talk to my trees, hug them, read a book with my back against the trunk, exchange energy with them, collect the bright leaves in the Fall, but I was blessed to have the only apple tree on the grounds right outside my livingroom window here. We connected, I'm sure, as I gave thanks each season for the apple blossoms, the birds, and the apples. I hung my mother's camel bells and mussel shells on the lower branches. During Covid my window visits with my grandchildren included watching them climb that wild, unpruned tree. My trauma therapist suggested I pretend it was MY tree and even though I wasn't able to hug the tree, I could look out my window and do these same exercises that you describe here. I could feel the energy exchange right through the glass! I named the tree after my trauma therapist and spoke with her often, the tree, for free. Then last year, with no notice and for no known reason, the property manager came at 7 a.m., removed my shells and bells, cut down my 40-year old apple tree with a noisy chain saw, and hauled the branches to the dump. I was so bereft! I wrote a poem about this crushing loss, then posted it, along with an old picture of my tree in mid-November. I've adapted and adjusted, as we've all been forced to do; in fact, the stump has sprouted a dozen little branches, becoming reborn, like me. The picture that you shared in your post was what brought the tears, before I read the text. Maybe it was the ferns growing in the bark of the maple tree. Maybe I just needed something to trigger a good sob session. I feel better now, and you will be on the top of my nightly gratitude list from now on. My trauma therapist, my apple tree's namesake, has been moved to the second place. You are a huge blessing, coming to us through Substack now, when we need you more than ever! May I name my new little apple tree after you, dear Dory?