Trees, Resilience, and Community

I just wanted to share something I experienced during a forest bathing session I facilitated at a retreat this past weekend (Nurturing the Goddess Within hosted by Earth Spirit Temple Earth Spirit Temple ).

While taking a walk through the area on my own before my session, I found myself drawn to a particular tree. As I came closer to it, I noticed that there were a bunch of nails sticking out of its trunk. I felt a certain sense of kinship with the tree. While I don’t have metal nails stuck into my body, I am still experiencing pain and discomfort from my breast reconstruction surgery. I’m just living with silicone stuck inside my body instead of metal.

Even though the tree had been injured by human hands, even though it is still living with the scars of those wounds, I noticed that it is still alive and still thriving. It still grows green leaves, its branches still reach toward the sun. It is still doing all the things that trees are meant to do.

And most importantly, it is still a valuable part of the forest ecosystem in which it inhabits. It still provides shelter to the forest critters. It still breathes in carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen. Its roots are still a part of the underground network connecting all of the trees in the forest.

It is still just as much a tree as it was before it sustained its injuries.

No matter what injuries you’ve sustained, no matter what artificial or replacement parts your body might contain now, you are still just as valuable and still just as human as you have always been. You are still an important and integral part of society, of earth, and of the universe!