August 12, 2020
When was the last time you did nothing but sit next to the trunk of a tree? Sounds pretty silly in a world that’s gone crazy. Nobody wants to take on the appearance of a tree hugger. And yet the power a tree holds has the ability to consistently invite peace and direction into your life and unwritten chapters. On this podcast episode we open the door to a world I’ve been a part of since November 1992. My forest. The journey to not only replenish the trees but to invite the animals including the snakes back into the security and comfort a forest brings to nature. In the writing I take note of how forgiving the soil is. It’s always providing for the whitetail deer, squirrels, beaver and others that stop in for a bite or more. I say that after seeing three fawn this morning. No matter how bad the storm, be it the summer heat of Carolina to howling winds and southern downpours, the forest continues to stand strong with its way of protecting. When I first arrived in 1992 there were no animals. It was a collection of trees beat up by acid rain. Today this very tiny section on this very large planet serves as a true spiritual connection. Which is what many of us need during this dance with a pandemic and everything that’s breaking around us. As much as we’re trying to fix our lives on the outside, it’s actually the invisible insides that are cracked, caving in, crumbling and fighting to survive because we were all shown how to persevere in one way or the other. Take a walk, enter a park, sit next to a tree, a stream or giant rock. There’s a huge chance that each of them have been here longer than you and there’s a story to be heard as well as experienced. The human can so easily quit and move to another city. The trees and rocks can’t. The human has an imagination that lets it turn everything off. The stream still has to provide. There’s a lesson here. The goal rests within the elements that make up preservation. Building a continuation of conversation with why you’re reaching forward and not taking from. We’re being challenged by changes no generation has ever experienced. Pulling the lens of the camera back the bigger picture shares a story of how the six generations before you also found struggle and pushed their journey through the walls and mountains. Those six generations before you faced desert floors and spiritual hunger and still kept walking toward this present place of Now. You’re here because they didn’t stop growing. The lens of the camera still pulled back I invite you to turn to the future. What are you investing in the next six generations? Don’t just fix your outside self. Find a tree and start healing spiritually.