Forestedness - or a crown that rests on many trunks
So I heard a voice. And the spirit said to me:
“A forest rests on many trunks.”
You have to understand... I just came out of several weeks of extremely demanding work that ended in getting a cold while on business trip in London and returning home early. While at home I juggled time in bed, time inhaling and time on conference calls, arriving at Friday night feeling completely banned from myself and exhausted. I guess we have all been there?
So this was the state I started to recover from when the spirit spoke to me about the nature of the forest resting on a many trunks. At the same time I heard its voice the spirit also showed me an image. The image showed a drawing of a huge unified forest crown supported by many trunks which again unified into a single foundation of strong roots... When the voice and image appeared, I instinctively closed my eyes, gazed at the simple image on my mind and everything fell silent. I realized there was a beautiful, a powerful message hidden in this simple sentence. A forest rests on many trunks. A forest rests on many trunks...
My first reaction was an emotional one. It was a feeling of deep relieve. Only then did I notice there had been a place within me that had held its breath for a very long time. Only now did it start to exhale. And only now, looking backwards do I realise: boy, did I need fresh air! The second reaction was the thought: How wonderful to be part of a forest! How wonderful to blend in. How wonderful to be surrounded by trees, to disappear into this darkness of green moist and bark, of animal sounds and roots deep down in the earth and crowns that stretch out like blankets below the clouds....
Instinctively the voice of the spirit brought me back to a place I had lost for a many weeks: a place of connectedness, of togetherness, of forestedness. It was a place where I shared joint roots and a joint crown, a place where there was no need to think or speak or act at all. A place where I just needed to be: A forest rests on many trunks. And wether I wanted or not, I also needed to acknowledge the flip-side of this forestedness: I was only one of many, intricately connected, yet equally bound by the bonds that embedded me into this forest of life and magic, of day and night, of experiences inside and outside of myself.
So the voice of the spirit at the same time managed to bind me and set me free. By giving me a simple image and a single sentence it changed my place and brought me back to where I longed to be. I lay there, eyes closed, still looking around at where I found myself...
Now I am sitting on a plane flying into another week full of meetings. I still see myself as a tree in the forest, holding up only a tiny fraction of the huge green unified crown that spans above all of us. What I still remember from the moment when the spirit spoke to me is this: Use control wisely and sparingly. Be gentle when using force to achieve what you think might be the goal. Mainly because you could be terribly wrong - and maybe are just pushing yourself and others closer to the edge...
In a forest night falls like a wave and day emerges slowly, light searching for its way through the branches, slowly warming the ground. Few things in a forest happen immediately and most things take a lot of time. Many unknown creatures dwell in a forest. And knowingly or not each tree contributes to building their nests and trails and nutrition. Being in a forest reminds me to be respectful towards the things I do not see, I do not know, yet which contribute essentially to the balance I thrive on.
As a forest change happens organically: It might be triggered without notice, an animal bringing in an unknown seed, a colony of ants moving in carrying an unknown fungus in their eggs, a storm or a fire breaking down a large section of trees allowing the wind and the sun to touch the ground for the first time after decades... Most of these changes are completely beyond control of the forest. And it doesn't aim to control. Instead, its power lies in its ability to adjust, to transform and embrace the change that is brought upon it. A forest doesn’t cling. A forest has no emotional self when it comes to letting go nor when it comes to accepting new things into its realm. Intruders might starve to death in a forest and produce new soil or they might eat large parts of the forest and produce new soil anyway. Either way, it is the forest that will prevail - because it rests on many trunks.
The only forest that dies is the forest that has grown to or made to become rigid. Rigidity, the inability to flex and change and adjust to one’s environment is introduced to the forest by man when biodiversity is reduced and wood is being farmed rather than allowed to spread and grow organically in families...
So this is the advise I am taking with me, allowing it to cling on to me like a faint scent on my clothes: all the diversity, the chatter, the chaos that I experience and sometimes hardly can cope with - it is exactly this chaos that will make us strong in the long-run. Wether we like it or not, it is what will keep us from becoming rigid, what will maintain us as humans. It is chaos on the surface and a melody on the inside. It is an essential part of our forestedness.
A good friend once said to me: ‘Everything will be good unless you have a plan.‘ I guess that is true for humans and forests alike? So if a being as beautiful and perfect as a forest doesn’t rely on control to become what it is, but on flexibility, on sensing changes early and adjusting to them accordingly - well, why couldn't I?
