I fell in love with a tree today

I fell in love with a tree today. Proposed.
I did.

She said, “Yes, but…
only if you embrace and entwine our roots
so as to truly inhabit and live equally
in the underworld with me too.”

The trees, they do talk, you know.
And today I discovered
they are promiscuous too.
For as rumors spread of our betrothal,
others quickly began to present themselves,
and to ask, “But what of me?”
Soon there was a chorus throughout the whole of forest.
Wherever I walked or looked, I heard,
“But what of me?”

They each sang,
“Am I not beautiful too?”

They released their delicious intoxications.
The scents of various pines and aspens and oaks
of soil and lichens and rocks too enveloped me
and I could not help but inspire
their very being into mine.

And soon enough
I thought to fear for my human identity.

Yet what, pray tell, is a real man to do?
I stepped into the fear
and said,”Yes!” of course,
to the whole holy lot of ’em.

And now, pray tell me true:
What is a man
if he not be a tree,
and even a forest too?

REFLECTIONS:

Have you ever seen a tree hug her-self?

I came across the above Ponderosa on my hike today. The way her root sinuously wraps itself around her trunk left me with the feeling she was doing just that: hugging her-self. And this apparently was just the medicine I needed.

I accepted the felt invitation to hug her too and soon the above peace flowed out. I have a long time enchantment with the rooting of trees, with their energetic thrust into the underworld. Indeed, it is intimacy with the underworld of our unconscious that is one of the great creative challenges of humanity at this time on the planet.

Without these intimacies, with the dark moist depths of soil and earth and unconscious within , our experience of self is but an enslavement to our identities of acculturation; what someone else wants of us. Nature and our joys are enriched as we discover our relationship with the other than human world and the freedoms of this grander knowledge and experience of self.

This is to rediscover the ecological self and a wild resiliency capable of transforming our way into a future of flourishing in concert with Earth as teacher and lover. So…

“You must go in quest of yourself, and you will find yourself again only in the simple and forgotten things. Why not go into the forest for a time, literally? Sometimes  a tree tells you more than can be read in book.” — Carl Jung

Larry Glover aspires to discover what being human truly is, particularly in a paradoxical world woven of mystery and consciousness and fire and water and air and earth and spirit and soul too. He struggled from an early age with a madness that would destroy himself, which he came to recognize as a cultural story of separation and unworthiness for life. Larry now leans into our shared love of nature to inspire and deepen what it is to truly love your self, through his writing, speaking, coaching, workshops and wilderness retreats. Learn more of how to engage with Larry at larryglover.com