To Think a Tree Might…Save Us From Ourselves?

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyJsNWBXfag]
It’s absurd to think a tree might teach us how to live more joy filled lives, let alone how we might save us from ourselves. Of course it is.
Unless, unless of course the tree in question might be the metaphorical Tree of Life. But such a tree as that is to be found only within the fantasies of our imagination, like the mythical Fountain of Youth or the fabled Cities of Gold so…
So thought some scientists in Africa who were studying Acacia trees and discovered that Relationships are the Language of Life. Surely this is the trail of apparently forbidden knowledge and wild wisdom, the biognosis, Albert Einstein pointed to:

Look deep into nature and then you will understand everything better.

So too I have come to experience that mystical Tree of Life as being embodied and closer to us than I ever believed possible as a youth. Now I know that, as George Washington Carver said:

Anything will talk to you if you love it enough.

So while some may find the Garden’s Gate through a holy book and others through perhaps—even a rock, the Aspen Tree, the Aspen Grove, they too provide us with an open and indigenous portal into the primal and essential nature of our own being—if we are but willing to look. Of course to do so will result in a revisioning of the nature of the self, of what it is to be human, of indeed the texture of the world itself so… so the risks are high.
On the other hand, or perhaps, more appropriately, on the other branch, perhaps we have everything to gain and nothing to lose by discovering that we do indeed belong, that Relationships are the Language of Life. It might change…everything: for in that wisdom lies the capacities for balance, adaptation and transformation. Yes, for peace making too, with all our relations.
In the spirit of this I am returning to blogging about Aspens. Until I’m able to gather past and coming posts into a planned ebooklet, you can view them in the Aspen-Body Wisdom Archives. Also, I will be presenting Aspens! Ancient Wisdom for Thriving in Challenging Times in Durango, CO, September 7, 2008, at the Whole Expo: The Four Corners Holistic Health & Ecological Conference and Exposition.
My fall/winter workshop schedule will be finalized shortly and I appreciate whatever help might be available to arrange presentations and workshops. You can sign up to be notified of these through the Be Well! Stay Wild! newsletter form at wildresiliency.com.
Coming soon is a longer video on Aspens! Change Hardiness and Learning Agility. Coming sooner, What We Can Learn From a Tree: Aspen Lessons.