Today let me tell you something that is nourishing. Let me fill up your cup with warm, restorative tea, made of herbs just mixed this morning, with a little liquid sweetness mixed in too.
Let’s together turn toward the waving leaves, and the sweet smells of Linden, Cedar, Nootka Rose, Maidenhair and more, carried on the breeze that moves around us. Let’s gently squeeze the soft, springy moss, and trail our fingers over fuzzy Thimbleberry leaves. Let’s marvel at a tiny bit of plant hovering in the air, suspended by an almost invisible spider-spun thread.
And let me introduce you, if I may, to the Lightning Tree. She stands tall and sturdy, scarred from root to crown.
But first can I guess that your heart hurts and your brain is spinning and maybe your breath is really shallow, a lot of the time? Can I guess that maybe you’re exhausted, and just maybe you’ve been a little short with your partner and kids and friends and other drivers and bosses and colleagues? That maybe you’ve thrown your phone down and turned away in disgust or tears or both too many times to count?
I know dear one - me too. It’s truly too much for our human hearts and minds to hold. The too-much terrible is the point - it’s the endgame and it’s the strategy to get there, a strategy used time and time again.
So today I’m offering you instead an antidote, a possibility, a reminder of another way. Instead of pulling away, we come together. We turn and look at the beauty and real magic of our everyday world (very much including each other) so we remember what we’re fighting for. Sweet and lovely beings are here waiting for us, so let’s meet them with curious hearts and minds.
Let’s let our spirits be touched and tended, and let our bodies feel the ground beneath our feet; let’s listen as though our body breathed in sound.
Not so far away is one of my very favorite forests. It’s a city forest, not some remote and hard to find backcountry. It reminds us that what’s wild and true lives right alongside and within us. We don’t have to trek far afield to find it.
In this forest, magic happens. The presence of birds and insects, wind and sun and rain become undeniably real and present. The world is vivid and true, as beings reach for connection through their leaves, branches, wings, and scampering feet. Just a little slow and quiet time in the forest brings us back home to the world. Instead of backdrop and scenery, trees come alive - really alive. A sole maple leaf twists and bends, offering greeting and welcome. Deep in the green, silent owl eyes watch and wait, as longing and awe move through us.
We encounter trees broken and bent, and don’t see them as wrong or failed. We see their life reflected in their shape - the curve of their trunk and their missing limbs embodying a lifetime of storms and their search for light and water, air and earth. Instead of mistake, we see a singular life lived.
If we’re lucky, this new way of seeing - this grace - can expand, encompassing our own bodies, our own lives and selves.
In this very special forest lives a very special being (so many very special beings. I wish I could introduce you to them all). Her shape is the shape of her life: one struck by lightning.
The scar runs down the length of her body, cutting deep into her trunk, as though she’d been sliced open with an electric scalpel. Scar tissue now fills the space between: incredibly tough wood, burled and knotted, protects vulnerable tissues inside. Meanwhile her crown is green and growing, her whole self fervently alive.
Meeting this being, we know delight, wonder, and reverence. We understand for a moment the sacred fierceness that says, “Yes I will live through this. Yes I’ll keep seeking sun and I will drink water and air, and yes my body will take care of me the best it knows how. Yes I will remain.”
We can think and discuss and process and do our best to make plans and meaning of our lives. And sometimes, it is raw and wordless encounter such as this that truly sustains us, that gives us some ground to stand on and root into.
Sometimes we learn through words, and sometimes, we just need to touch the rippling scar of a tree that survived apocalypse.
When we bring our caring attention to one another (all the beloved Others) we walk a well-worn but sometimes nearly forgotten trail. In a time when too many tell us only fire and drought and deluge - the jagged wound - are left, we know better. We know that awe and love for ourselves and one another make our lives possible. There is so much more to share, and so many ways to keep life alive: there is beauty and wonder, sweetness and sturdyness and tough, living scars.
I offer this, then, as nourishment and care, a cup of tea brewed just for you. I’m placing it in your hands to comfort you, warm you, and fill you up. I offer this as a message from the forest, and from my own heart, to yours.
Thank you for staying here awhile - let’s keep wandering and wondering together.
Antidotes and seeds
Some ways to walk the trail of love:
Tell Congress to Block the Bombs and end US complicity in genocide
Donate to the Middle East Children’s Alliance to support emergency response in Gaza
Learn how to stand up to ICE raids in your community
Messages from the Web - tarot practices for listening in
This spread takes inspiration from the beloved Lightning Tree. These questions can be used with tarot or oracle cards, or as journal prompts.
Card 1: What wound needs tending?
Card 2: How may I grow toward healing?
Card 3: What nourishment and care is available that I may not be seeing?
Card 4: How do I tend the scar?
If you work with these questions, please share what you discover by commenting below.
with love, heather
I love this, Heather. I can't help but think of the Lightning (Tower) card from the Gaian. This beautiful photo of the scarred Doug fir is what happens next, after the lightning hits. Kind of tucked in before the Star card. Makes me want to make another card!
That is one powerful creative cauldron you have, and we're so lucky to learn from & be nourished by all that comes from it! I can only hope there's space in there for this possibility! 🙏☺️💖