“The Earth has music for those who listen.”

― William Shakespeare

When we connect with nature, we connect to something larger and wiser than our minds. 

We invite you to engage a simple practice this week to help you keep your spirituality alive by connecting directly with nature. Research demonstrates the powerful aliveness of the natural world, especially the communication of the trees. We now know that trees communicate to one another through the Wood Wide Web—sometimes instantaneously—sending messages, nutrients, and even tending and care. Practices like Forest Bathing or hiking make our bodies regulate and shift how we perceive and feel.

This week we encourage you to use your connection to nature, by sitting against a tree, to activate aliveness. Maybe you’ve had an experience of connecting to a tree or feeling something move you when walking through a forest. Maybe you have a special tree that you reach out to or return to over and over. 

This practice will help you join the living conversation of the natural world and to use your direct connection with nature to enliven you and keep your soulful connection.

1.  Find a tree that calls to you where you can lean back against the trunk. Take a few deep breaths and release tension and worry as you sink back further into the trunk with each breath.

2. Take one hand and place it over your heart and breath inward. 

3.  Take your other hand and place it over your navel and breath downward through your inner channel.

4. Then, with eyes open or closed, expand your awareness around you (which just means pay attention to the landscape that surrounds your body) as you intentionally connect with the tree you are sitting against. Release any expectations and simply feel.

5. Notice using your 2nd senses of seeing beyond what your eyes see, feeling beyond what your body feels, hearing beyond what your ears hear, and knowing beyond what your mind knows what you are aware of in that moment.

6. What feels alive around you? What feels alive within you? What feels alive in the connection between you and the tree?

Make note of one aspect of what makes you feel alive as you connect with the tree and return to this practice—either sitting next to the tree or simply feeling the connection through your awareness—when you feel scattered or disconnected. 

Allow this simple practice to enliven your spirituality throughout the summer months to connect you through the natural world.

With love,

Annmarie