The other evening, as I was walking through my neighborhood, I stopped to visit a group of four pines that live in the open space near my townhouse.  I am particularly fond of them as they create a sheltered, quiet place, smelling fresh and lively all year.  They frame the moon as she rises and are a perfect place to regenerate my energy at the end of a long day of healing, teaching and writing.

I often speak to these friends, thanking them, offering healing.  On this particular evening, they addressed me with thanks for the help I have given, and appreciation for me as a part of their life.  I was touched and grateful, honored to be of help to those who bring so much to our world.

Long ago, trees stretched from the east coast to the Great Plains, as one gigantic forest.  In my imagination, I walk beneath their canopy, embraced by their intelligence, beauty and healing power.   

I had a friend in Royal Oak Michigan, whose quarter acre back yard contained at least twenty tall Oaks.  He would spend time beneath them, creating a meditative space for his heart to find rest.  These trees told me they are part of the forest we call Royal Oak.  Though the forest is greatly thinned out and divided by concrete and buildings, they are connected through their roots and the earth to each other.  To them, the forest is whole and intact.

I remembered this when I was listening to the pines on that recent evening.  And it led me to connect with the forest of Ann Arbor, my home.  It did my heart good to feel the trees united and loving consciousness, present in wholeness; maintained through their life and their beautiful souls, connected as one through our planet earth.

For most of my life, though I talked with the trees, I never heard them.  At the age of thirty two, I was pregnant with a failing marriage, and greatly depressed for numerous reasons.  I had never been well grounded into my body and soul, and being pregnant put me squarely there, stuck in a lot of unconscious baggage I hadn’t yet healed. That is when I first heard a tree reach out and speak to me with love.  There, in that most difficult time and place, I found a great blessing; an ability to hear trees and other creatures.

It is amazing to me the powerful and true intelligence that comes through some trees.  Not all trees hold such an evolved spirit as the one I met that first fateful day.  But I was privileged to experience a range of tree intelligence one weekend walking in the Superior National Forest in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  Though much of this great forest has been clear cut more than once, the earth energy there is extremely strong and wholesome.   Walking, I became aware of an unusual level of sentient intelligence within the forest.  This sense grew as I came closer to Lake Superior and stepped onto the highest level, just before it dropped off to the lake.

There I met the whitest and largest birch tree I have ever seen, growing at the edge of a tiny stream that fell in a waterfall from its roots.  I spoke to her telepathically, appreciating her great beauty and spirit.  When she replied “You don’t have to shout, I can hear quite well!”  I stepped back, stunned that I had been shouting at trees telepathically for my whole life, thinking they couldn’t hear me; but it was I who couldn’t hear them!  Chagrined, I apologized and thanked her in a much gentler volume.  

She said she was busy teaching the young trees, so I left her to her work and continued walking.  I met some of her students and they were another amazing lesson for me!  These young trees seemed to grow in patches according to type.  A patch of young maples, another of young beech, etc..  I listened to them and each type of tree seemed to share a unique attitude and personality.  They reminded me of children in school, standing in groups that each strike an attitude.  Some groups seemed gentle and kind, others catty, some friendly and curious, others quiet.  But they were all sentient and intelligent, much more obviously conscious than any group of trees I had met before.  I could hear and talk to any of them and they were obviously in close communication with each other, and no doubt their teacher birch! 

I have since spent time with the Sequoias of Northern California, and they are in a whole other class of enlightenment!  They are cosmic intelligences, unifying wisdom from the heavens with our planet.  What a joy! 

My advice to you is, don’t be shy, say hello to the trees you love.  They will love you back!