What the Tree Told me-The Three Phases of the Self: Introduction Part 1

 

I suppose, once she was standing tall and strong on the foreshore, but when I met her, she was prone. Her roots were half in, and half out of the embankment, with her leaves and branches soaked by the tide when it came in. Not particularly good for her wellbeing, soaking them in salt. But she thrived sufficiently to provide shelter and a resting place for the shags, spoonbills, and sometimes, blue herons. They, in turn covered her with guano, making up for what the salt took away perhaps. She had been there, like that, for a long time. Long before I came to her resting place, some twenty years ago.

I was not well, but what’s new! My ailments, then as now, vary from day to day. But then, the weakness of chronic fatigue was in full steam, leaving me somewhat lifeless. Walking the dog on the beach was sometimes a joy, sometimes a chore, but I did it. By the time I reached the tree I was well ready to turn for home, but something about her called me to rest my head on her prone branch, holding myself up by hanging branch. I thanked her, hoping to receive some form of healing energy from her for the trip home. I had done that for weeks before I took a really good look at her.

She was a survivor, that was obvious, hanging onto the bank for all she was worth, she had made a life between the elements. And she did give me a gift. I want to say hope, but hope is such a dead-end street. No, it was inspiration. If she could hang on in there, maybe I could too. Maybe I could accept my limitations, while still able to experience life on Life’s terms. As I did this, day after day, missing our communications on the days the tide got there before me, something started to change. I saw the roosting birds fly from her as we, the dog and I, approached, finding, if I waited quietly, they came back again to resettle. I saw the seaweed catch in her branches, the insects crawl along her truck, the sand creatures touch her, realizing there was reciprocity in all their interactions as I became part of this reality.

Being of a Celtic mythological mindset, I started to form a ritual between us, based of the number three. Three of Taliesin, trice born. Three of the balance we would not have without touching on three points to stand upright, Three of the Triple Goddess, the maiden, Mother, and Crone, or three of the Trinity if you happen to be of Christian persuasion. Three times blessed. So, I did. I blessed her once, twice, three times each time we met, feeling like I was giving something back for all she was giving me. And somewhere in me I felt stronger. I could do this.

Then one day-Shock! Horror! Someone had chopped off two of her branches. I felt like I had just witnessed someone with their arms taken off. Punched in the gut. Angry as hell. Why would they do that? Rational was whispering in the back of my mind:

 “Times are hard. Maybe they needed wood”.

 Not good enough. Saltwater rusts the firebox.

“They were desperate. Or maybe they thought it was safer for kids.”

Nothing satisfied me. Crying, I placed my Reiki-emitting palms on each stump, one at a time. Rubbed my saliva into them, blessed them. Day by day, I repeated this offering, seeing slowly the oxidization of the raw wood healing.

I don’t know why I thought of it, maybe she suggested it. Seems a likely possibility it was from her. But I started a new ritual. I noticed that the two stumps bordered on either side of a central crook in the tree where the two main branches, now cut, had grown out from the trunk. The central joining crutch made three points again: two coming out of one (or perhaps, one joining the two again). I found myself placing my hand on the furthest stump repeating these words:

“Bless you, tree, for the personal being that you are, with all your individuality, uniqueness and shape.

Then I moved to its twin stump intoning:

” Bless you, tree, for the community that you support and that supports you. “

And then to the crutch:

“Bless, you tree for being part of this wonderful Universal experiment, adding to the whole.”

And so this continued, in this new vein, day after day, for many months.

Then, one day, it occurred to me, like scales dropping from my eyes, that the tree had taught me another lesson. What was true for the tree was true for us all. We all live three lives at once. We are individual unique beings, living out the specialty that we bring to the whole. We, at the same time, are all part of a community. We can ignore it, pretending we are solitary. Or we can participate, giving and taking as the need arises. *‘From each according to their (his) ability. To each according to their (his) needs.’ Finally, we are all part of the greater scheme of things. We nest (as the System Thinkers say) inside the nodes of a massive closed system, networks within networks, spawning everything. Everything returning to One, to be recycled again and again.  We, individually, are all of it. Life is soo much larger, deeper, wider, than we image, in the minutia of our daily lives. Thanks be to the tree. And every being under the sun. Be thrice blessed.

*Carl Marx