Tree poll results (long)

[Guest guest]

Dear Lists,

 

Ten people from three different lists have related their tree stories. I

find it fascinating that while 6 of these stories come from two Kundalini

lists with a combined membership of over 700 people, four of these stories

come from a list, that is not specifically K related, of only 33 members.

Now if this was a poll on Snake stories, I wonder what the result would

be!....LOL!

 

Here are excerpts from the stories. Sorry about the length of this, but they

make a wonderful group, I think!

 

Thanks everyone!

 

Love, Hillary

 

**********

 

...all my experiences began with a tree when I was twenty four--near on

forty

years ago. It is a long story and there is no way I can go into it all

here.

But I felt the need to take a day off work and just go sit over the moors

alone. My attention was caught by the ugliest thing in creation-- a bent

twisted pathetic runt of a moorland Rowan tree.

 

I could not stop looking at is pathetic form and uselessness; it served no

function in existence and it was ugly beyond words. I could not walk away

from this damned stupid useless tree. I was stuck there for about five or

six

hours until sundown --talking to this tree --in my head obviously. I would

argue my point, and then somehow, in my head, the tree was arguing its

point

and criticising me --weird stuff eh. But where were the words and concepts

coming from that landed in my head?

 

When this "conversation". Was over I wept with joy, for that tree made me

see

things and understanding things that a boy had never comprehended. That

night

whilst sitting listening to music I was transported to another reality for

three hours --the paradise of the transcendent realm, the beginning and the

end of Being, and which all the genuine mystics have spoke of throughout

time. But that was only the start mate.

 

Dick Richardson: rwr (rwr)

 

***********

I was running through the hills of Manoa Valley, outside

Honolulu, around midnight. I love running at night, the air cool and

misted, the valley quiet and respectful......

 

When the Chinese came to Oahu, in the middle 1800's I think, they

immediately laid out a glorious final resting place for their

ancestors-to-be. They picked the most beautiful land on the island,

and feng-shuied it to perfection. Nestled back at the end of the

valley, where the mountain crests meet, they planted a Banyan tree,

smack in the middle. By the time I arrived on my fateful night, the

tree was over 100 years old, huge, magnificent, awe-inspiring.

 

One unusual characteristic of the tree is the fact that it is hollow

in the middle. You can stand with both feet flat on the ground in

the center of this enormous being and look straight up through its

universe of branches. The innermost elements of the tree are

blackened, as if lightening had struck it, I thought. ...

 

It had become my habit to run to this tree, stand within it, say a

prayer of appreciation, and then emerge and look out over Honolulu

down below me. Well, on this particular night, I had run pretty hard

and was very sweaty and breathing harder than usual. As soon as I

got inside the tree, I stretched up, arching my back, and rested both

of my palms on the stub of a branch that had been amputated some time

in the distant past.

 

As I'm trying to regain my breath, I suddenly realize I'm

being kind of rude. I've run right into the middle of this amazing being

and hung my sweaty hands on the center of its amputated limb. So without

thinking about anything, I start to say in my mind, "Hello."

Before I can get to the second syllable of that word, I am interrupted by a

big, loud, enthusiastic, and very friendly voice from within my head

who almost yells, "HI!"

 

I'm stunned. Because of my experience with the other voice, I am

not paralyzed with amazement, but I do notice that the tree- voice sounds

as if it were coming from inside my head, not outside as before.

Nonetheless, it sounds nothing at all like self talk, or imagination,

or anything initiating from me.

 

Panting, still stretching on the tree, I think, Did I just hear

that? Did I just hallucinate that? Was that the - and before I can

think the word "tree", a loud, "YES!" interrupts my thoughts.

 

Okay, okay, I'm talking to a tree. Stranger things have

happened. To me. Gather yourself girl, take advantage of this opportunity.

Be respectful. Quick! What is tree etiquette?

 

So mentally clearing my throat, still conscious of my hands on the

limb stub and a part of me wondering if that's our connection, I

start again. I start to project another mental greeting,

"Hel-" gets out and again the tree interrupts me with another big, back

slapping "HI!"

 

Now I'm convinced I'm talking to a tree, a very enthusiastic

tree, an interrupting tree, and I cannot think of another thing to say.

Saying hello again sounds completely asinine, but I simply cannot

think of anything appropriate. Finally, grasping at straws, feeling

self conscious and so new age I can't believe this is the best I

can come up with, I mentally say, "Is there something you would like

to tell me?"

 

This time silence. No interruption, no answer at all.

 

Scrambling for a genuine communication, still feeling like a bumbling

alien in the land of grace, knowing this experience is precious and

I could be blowing it by being so clueless, well aware of the time

passing and fearing a loss of connection, I finally blurt out,

"Is there something you would like to tell all people?"

 

Again, the tree interrupts me before I can get to the ". . . all

people." But I know it knows the end of the sentence, it's

just not wasting our time.

 

"Teach them to love death," the tree says.

 

Anne: ajakahn (aja kahn)

 

************

This was in 1955. I was living in Las Vegas, Nevada. Memorial Day weekend

was coming up and it seemed like a good time for a friend of mine and I to

get out of town and do something different. We were both working at the

Nevada Test Site and with Operation Teapot just concluded (14 above-ground

shots) we felt like unwinding.

 

... After a while we took off for King's Canyon National Park. We got there

sometime in the afternoon....

 

All this time since we left the car I hadn't seen any people. For a while I

just wandered around all by myself. Eventually got to feeling lazy, found a

place under a big sequoia that looked comfortable. So I lay down and sort

of let loose, and listened, and looked at the tree over me, and up at the

sky, and the clouds, and smelled all the new smells, just generally getting

to know the place.

 

At some point I noticed there were thoughts in my head that I wasn't

thinking. What caught my attention was that the thoughts were not like my

thoughts. I don't mean in content, I mean the way they felt. Alien, but

not scary at all. Just really different. Not slow, really, but very

steady, very much not-mixed-up. And I guess I had relaxed enough not to

shut it out.

 

After a bit I began to recognize what these "thoughts" were. I was lying

underneath this huge sequoia tree, and what I was (somehow) picking up on

the tree working out some changes in its seeds to make them germinate

easier, or better, or something. Not thinking about it, then doing

something, like we might do. The "thought" and the "act" were all one piece.

This was long-term work, but time didn't seem to be important. Maybe that

was part of the difference I felt.

 

These "thoughts" weren't in words, but I have to tell it in words. And it

wasn't thinking at me at all, or even about me. I was there, and in the

right frame of mind or something, and just tuned in somehow. Well, that's

what happened that afternoon.

 

***********

I too have had a profound experience with a tree. It happened in 1984,

whilst

I was undergoing a series of intense experiences. Instead of speaking to a

tree, I actually so identified with one that it was as if I had become it.

I

experienced myself and ...my partner, as two ancient oak trees. I was

rooted

to the spot (pun intended) for about a day whilst I really experienced the

essence of what it was to be that tree. My roots going so deeply into the

earth; my branches reaching high to the heavens and also stretching way,

way

back in time, incredibly ancient, incredibly powerful. It was as if I was

spreading out a protective covering of branches and leaves across the whole

of history. What wisdom there was in just being that tree, feeling the

strength of it, the compassion of it as it sheltered so many beneath its

great form. To know that tree was to know "God".

 

And when years later I had the experience of seeing myself coming down to

earth from a place that seemed to be my home, I saw that tree again, that

mighty form looking down on me with such compassion. I put my arms around

it

and it poured into me such love and strength, that just the very recalling

of

it makes me weep. How I love that tree.

 

*********

 

In my spine I would feel the presence of a formidable tree, a trunk with my

roots deeply into the earth as well surrounding and holding the earth, my

branches would lift themselves upwards as though inviting the heavens to be

embraced by me. A great cosmic intercourse. And (again strangely) the words

"Tree of Jesse" would

resound, the vibrations as though joining earth and universe in a loving

embrace....

 

***********

I was thinking of an inner tree just today.....

 

The tree is constant, growing from somewhere

in the lower body (the root chakra ?) up through the middle of the body (the

trunk) to the base of the skull, where the trunk first widens into a crown.

The tree crown includes the head.

 

I take this to be the sight (inner sight, the tree shining golden colored)

and presence of nerves and fascicles in the spine, going up to the base of

the brain and nerves and energy in the brain itself.

 

Not very exciting and mystical or ?

The tree is simply just there. But of course its presence feels very good.

 

In the beginning, the top of the tree, the crown, looked and felt like a

broad wedge of light driven down between the brain hemispheres to split the

skull (?). The sight of this wedge made me a little bit nervous, so I must

say I like the image of a golden tree with a wide crown better.

 

Right before writing this, I watched a travel program on tv about England and

the Glastonbury Tor in South England. The Glastonbury Tor is a site which

King Arthur is said to have visited during his search for the Holy Grail.

 

It hit me that the nerve tree with an added base as broad as the tree crown,

that of the root chakra and the nerves of the upper legs, create the shape of

a medieval goblet seen in profile... May this be the Holy Grail ?

 

**********

It must be that "Tree's" plays a major role in the human psyche and has

become of somewhat of an archetypal phenomena. The works of Robert Graves -

The White Goddess - and the tree alphabet and much more... that is written

in these pages... most will not be known except to only to the mystic at

heart.

 

************

 

Perhaps not in the same vein as these other experiences, but often times

after quite a good meditation I will be full of energy and often decided to

walk it off. I often feel extremely drawn to trees, and will stand against

the trunk. The feelings elicited are quite spectacular, calmness stillness,

I can feel the individual branches moving as if they were arms of my own

body. The tree can feel different ways, often times I have held a tree and

felt pain and then to find a recently chopped limb(?). Well I don't

considered myself a tree hugging hippy (non-derogatory), but this is

sometimes that I find drawn to do.

 

*************

Had an experience with the late Terrence McKennah where he not only told us

we would meet the tree elves but described them in great and accurate detail

before the experience. The drug was an Ayayasca [sp?] brew. Yes, it was a

shared "hallucination".

 

Coming out of a bad period 13 years ago a white oak adopted me. My current

main tree is a black hickory. I meditate with it by leaning against its

trunk as a run my Chakras. Powerful energies flow as I pull up through the

muldahara and send love back through it.

 

Trees communicate with other trees of the same and different species through

chemical signals in their root systems. I think we can tap [whoops!] into

this on a nonverbal level.

 

Saving trees is a metaphysical mandate as well as an ecological one.

 

************

I was at a grounding dance class & I met Mother Earth. Yes She is my Mother

too. I never felt more alive nor cherished & loved. I felt akin to wood

nymphs. It was glorious. I never felt I fit my mother & grandmother human

family. They felt alien to me. When I met Mother it fit. I now know I am an

earthling.

 

Now this helps me understand the ways of the Aborigines more. This is good

because 5 generations back there was a full blooded Aboriginal ancestor in

my family apparently. I would like to read more from anyone who has met &

written about Mother :-) I used to just think of earth as an object beneath

my feet. ...The message I seemed to get was that when the wood nymphs dance

they create the trees.

 

 

END

 

***********

 

Poll:

 

In the 60's my husband and I lived in a cabin among some wonderful redwood

trees. Some friends were visiting and one of them had brought along some

LSD. Gil told me later that while on LSD the friends had both turned into

tree elves.

 

So...... the mini poll question is:

 

Have you ever had a "mystical" tree experience? And, of course, what was it

like? ).