The Tree Whisperer's Story
A few years ago Ashana and I had the unenviable luck of being in the path of Hurricane Sandy. We had been on the road for a few weeks and our next event was in New Hope, PA, (about 45 minutes East of Trenton, NJ). The day before the hurricane was supposed to come onshore, we were in upstate New York. We found ourselves having to make a choice. Stay and ride out the storm, or leave. Fearing the possibility of wide-spread flooding, we decided to pack and leave as quickly as we could. In that moment, without realizing it, our choice put us in the direct path of the storm.
We didn’t get to Sarah and Walter’s until late that evening. By then it had already started raining and we had no idea what the storm was doing. Sandy had taken a turn, aiming straight for New Jersey and scheduled to make landfall in less than 24 hours. The only thing that we could do was to hunker down and ride out the storm.
The next day as we nervously anticipated the Hurricane, Sarah said, “I am really concerned about a few trees on the back of our property that we planted a couple years before”. She knew that they had not quite settled in and was worried about them being damaged in the storm.
Less than half an hour later Sarah walked into the room, a strange look on her face.”You're not going to believe the email I just received”, she said. Someone had randomly forwarded her an email from a Tree Whisperer, (TRUE STORY!!) with suggestions to help the trees weather the storm. We were shocked, (but not surprised), and asked her to elaborate. The Tree Whisperer said to talk to your trees. Tell them to bend and sway with the wind and to send their roots deep into the ground. We decided to do a small ceremony and meditation for the trees. In our meditations, we each saw the trees reaching deep into the Earth and giving themselves permission to bend and sway with the wind. We were grateful for the message from the Tree Whisperer. The only thing left now was to ride out the storm.
That night as the storm hit we could hear the howling of the wind outside. You could feel the house being buffeted by huge gusts of wind. I've been in hurricanes before so I had an idea of what to expect. The sound of the wind was probably the most unnerving. It felt and sounded like a freight train that was about to drive itself through the house. Watching the trees and the plants outside from the safety of the window, we could only wonder what was going to happen during the course of the night. Eventually, exhausted from the day, and the anxiety of what was happening, we fell asleep.
By the next morning the storm had passed. I could see the swirling clouds above us moving quickly across the sky. It was a beautiful, pink sky dawn. There was a gentleness in the energy compared to the night before. The storm had passed, we had survived. Electricity was out but we expected that to happen. (It took 4 days before it came back on. Thank God Walter, in his infinite wisdom, had set up a portable generator before the storm hit.)
Earlier, before we had woken up, Walter went out and walked the property to check for damage. He came back in and was very surprised to find virtually no damage to speak of, with the exception of a lot of leaves on the ground. “I checked the trees in the backyard and they didn't sustain any damage except for one branch. But the funny thing is that I had been considering cutting that particular branch because it was already partly broken and hanging over”, he said Sarah, Ashana, and I looked at each other and just smiled. We realized that the trees had heard us.
Ashana and I decided to go for a walk so we could stretch our legs and release some of the pent-up energy from the previous night, and the past few days. It was still outside. A kind of eerie, surreal silence. Walter was right, about the trees around the house. There were no signs of any damage. A lot more leaves on the ground compared to the day before. We thought, “No Big Deal! Just a little wind.”
We were less than a quarter mile away from the house when we really started to understand the devastation that the storm had brought. Huge trees were either down or pulled up by the roots and laying across the road. Some of the trees were at least two feet in diameter, just snapped or fallen over. Trees that could have been over a hundred years old or more, toppled over like a giant had come through and wreaked havoc. Debris was everywhere. It looked like a war zone. We were shocked at what we saw. and said a quick prayer that everybody was safe and no one had been hurt. And yet through all that energy that the storm had generated and unleashed, those young pine trees in the backyard were still standing tall and proud.
Most of us are so resistant to change! Instead of letting go, we hold on tighter, and become more rigid. What if we were more like the trees during the storm? We grounded deeply inside ourselves and gave ourselves permission to be more flexible, to allow the energy to move around us. We learn to bend and sway, so we don't break. There's incredible grace with having more flexibility in our lives. We can move as the energy moves. We learn that being rigid, that being resistant to change, in the long run usually creates more hardship, more suffering, and more pain. I think we take the wisdom of the Tree Whisperer and the example of the trees, look at how we can incorporate that into our lives
Is there a place in your life right now where being grounded, becoming more present with yourself, and allowing the energy to move around you, be more beneficial? How do we move beyond resistance and give ourselves permission to be more flexible? Be brave and willing to take a chance, and learn from the trees. See how less resistance and more flexibility could impact your life.