Tree Teaching

Not long ago I was telling a young musician and composer about the project Julie and I have of talking with specific trees. He asked what messages I was picking up, and my brain scrambled around a little, thinking, “Is it the ancient apple tree speaking, or is it me projecting?” But then, put on the spot, I talked about this small extraordinary tree that has almost no interior but is just a curve of bark that sinks into earth in a couple of precarious places. She calls herself “Fair Apple” and talks about the need, especially in snow, to slow down her metabolism and use only minute amounts of sparkling energy. She knows how to conserve and be quiet. The musician was not dismissive, and though he didn’t relate specifically to the idea of talking with trees, he knows that his music comes to him when he clears his head, looks out the window with no thoughts, and allows himself to receive. We can call it the muse, or call it a gift, or call it nothing but cultivate it all the same . . . this other layer that enriches our lives and slowly brings us to wisdom.

Upon hearing this story, Barbara related the following: “When my daughter Donna was four or five years old, as I put her to bed she was pondering how God can be everywhere. ‘Is He in the hinge on the door?’ she wondered.  ‘And how can God speak to me?’  I don’t remember if I said anything. What I do remember is her profound awareness as she pronounced, ‘Oh, I see. God puts his thoughts in my mind and I think them.’ And so it goes. As I have said, when I was just beginning to wake up, and after Donna’s brilliant insight, I made a deal with God. It was something like, ‘OK God, I want to do your will. I want to live by your guidance. I don’t want to always be asking, Is this you God, is this you speaking and not me?  I am going to make a deal. I will trust that all of the ideas I receive are you speaking to me, and I will leave it to you to let me know if I am on the wrong track.’”

“Soon after that I was guided to use the pendulum and later hand movements for yes and no answers. It took a long time before I really trusted that the answers were from God and not my own mind. Each time when I began the process, I sought to confirm the yes and no answers by asking: Am I in tune with my higher mental body? If I got yes, I continued.

The trees in the amphitheater nourish Barbara continually, and she them. She writes: “I have created a pattern when I walk into the amphitheater of stopping to rest against a redwood tree I call Mother. In telling me about herself, she said, ‘My work is to greet those who enter the amphitheater. The presence within this sacred space causes the sensitive ones to stop, look, feel. Their auras are being adjusted so they can enter our vibration and leave with a more refined tuning than when they arrived. I am not confined to this tree; it is simply my favorite location for greeting those who enter.’”

“Today she invited me to lean further into her and feel my roots going into the earth, drawing up the light from the center of the earth, just as she draws up the deep water table through her roots. She asked me to follow the energy from the earth up through my body and out the top of my head, like leaves from a tree. Then she asked me to notice the source of my vision. I could feel energy in my heart, and my vision was coming out of my forehead.”

“At this point I opened my eyes and noticed that the base of the tree, at its center, was shaped like the face of a gnome, the pointed hat going up the trunk of the tree. I realized that the gnome wanted to speak to me. ‘The face you see at the base of the redwood tree is my signature,’ he began. ‘It is not my actual face, although I can embody it if I wish.’ Later he provided this insight, ‘If you could get in the habit of asking for help from the wise ones of the earth before you begin a major activity, we could truly co-create in a better manner. You speed into choices in areas you know little about and drag on actions where you know you are the only one who can make the choices. I have a suggestion that might help change this unfortunate pattern. Look within. Ask the one within who can see the larger picture and the flow of energies: What is to be done this day and who would be best to work with me to accomplish it? The point is that you are not alone. You are never to work alone. You are always to take advantage of the gift that has been given to you to support your actions with wisdom and insight. By doing this, the work you do will flow easily and efficiently without old upsets, standstill, or missed action.’”

“For years I always greeted and spoke with this gnome when I came to the amphitheater. His was the tree with two trunks going up to make a yoni shape—the definite focal point of the amphitheater’s floor. When a huge twisting windstorm came through and took out more than eleven trees from my property, one of the trunks of this ‘Master Tree’ broke off. Even though the base of the tree was not touched, since then I haven’t seen his face there.”