The Magic of Trees

I’ve been hiking out at Wolsfeld Woods SNA at least once a week since Labor Day. It’s fall and I’m waiting for the huge old sugar maples to turn golden.

Yesterday on my hike I saw that some of the trees are beginning to turn high in the canopy. Soon they will turn golden and rain down golden leaves through golden light.

Walking in the golden hued woods is big magic for me. I feel as if I’m in a giant golden-light-filled cathedral with golden leaves high above my head, beneath my feet and floating down through the air.

“To be poor and be without trees, is to be the most starved human being in the world. To be poor and have trees, is to be completely rich in ways that money can never buy.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, The Faithful Gardener: A Wise Tale About That Which Can Never Die

The Magic of Trees

When I wander in the woods I feel the benevolence of the wise old trees. I imagine the patience and wisdom of the trees and take nourishment from simply wandering among them.

Often when I hike in Wolsfeld Woods I see no other people. I am alone in the woods. It’s simply the trees, wild creatures, and me. I never tire of being in these woods. Each tree is like an old friend.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

 

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

 

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

― Hermann Hesse, Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte

When was the last time you tuned in to the magic of trees?

May you walk in beauty.