Week 16: The Sky-Forest Symbiosis
The Canopy Connection
Reflection
As we enter the third week of April, the south coast of British Columbia is in a state of high biological intensity as the transition from winter continues into a nutrient-rich spring.
The Bigleaf Maple tree is entering full bloom.
High above in the canopy heavy, drooping clusters of chartreuse flowers waft the nutty, sweet scent of their flowers while they embody mutuality, interdependence and spiritual agency.
Evidence & Ecology
In many Coast Salish languages, the Bigleaf Maple literally translates to the “paddle tree”, as the unique properties of this wood set it apart from cedar and fir.
While the cedar is considered the “Tree of Life” by many indigenous peoples of the south coast, and was used for canoe building, it was considered too brittle for the high resistance needs of a paddle. The wood of the maple is exceptionally strong, hard and close-grained giving it the best attributes to be carved into ocean voyaging paddles.
If the canoe, or cedar that becomes the canoe, represents our life’s vessel or our community, the paddle, or maple, is our will. The Bigleaf Maple teaches us how to use that hardness in appropriate ways. With enough strength to manoveur the currents of life without bending or breaking.
The paddle is what gives the canoe direction. What part of your character can you identify as your ‘hard wood’? What parts of you are strong enough to lean into the resistance of the water and propel you forward?
Embodying Practice
Embodied Nature Meditation
Canopy to Heartwood
Begin standing if that is available to you.
Firmly plant your feet on the floor and spread your toes to become anchored to the earth.
Allow yourself to become aware of your breathing - inhalations and exhalations through your nose.
As you become settled into your breathing I invite you to draw your awareness upwards to your “canopy”. Allow yourself to notice what is going on up there. Thoughts. Sensations. What creatures are you housing there - to-do lists, deadlines, plans and any problems you may be facing in your life.
Story of Place
A Conversation with the Season
The Hidden Scent of April
For years after I moved to the BC coast, I’d be out walking in the early spring and this sweet, heavy smell would just wrap around me. It was subtle but everywhere. I’d stand there in the damp, sniffing the air like a dog, looking around and finding absolutely nothing. No obvious flowers, just the usual wall of green.
Back then, I honestly thought those chartreuse, dangling clusters on the Bigleaf Maples were just the new leaves—bunched up and waiting to "properly" unfold. It was pure ignorance, really. It took years before someone casually mentioned to me that those beautiful, drooping things were actually blossoms. And they were edible.
It’s one of those lessons that stuck with me as I got deeper into nature-based therapy. I remember feeling a bit cheated—how could I have lived here this long without knowing that? Why isn’t the "literacy" of our own backyard part of the curriculum? We’re taught how to pass tests, but not how to read the interwoven life of the woods we actually live in.
Take these trees, for example. They have this deep, craggy bark and a sap that’s incredibly rich in calcium. It makes them the perfect host for these massive, heavy mats of moss and licorice ferns. This is where the interdependence of the forest gets really wild: the maple actually grows "aerial roots" straight out of its own branches. It threads them into the moss to drink the rainwater and nutrients the moss has spent all winter collecting……
The Invitation
Nature Kinship
Weekly nature connection practices aligned seasonally to engage with your locale. Encouraging immersion, appreciation and spiritual attunement with the more than human world around you.
Always remember to enjoy these practices within the bounds of your physical and ecological limits (do not sit outside when it’s -40, or walk on slippery surfaces), practice “leave no trace” and mindful reciprocity (take only what you need, ask permission from the earth, and only leave what is naturally biodegradable)
The Art Practice
Drawing down Interdependence
Begin by drawing yourself as a BigLeaf Maple Tree on a large sheet of paper.
Use earthy neutrals such as charcoal, or grey and brown watercolours.
Envision and draw your canopy as it feels to you at this moment. How many blooms do you have? What stage of development are they? These blooms are metaphors for projects, plans or problems that are showing up in your life at this moment.
Feel free to add any animals - birds, squirrels, or bugs - that are the people in your life depending on you. Those people that need your support to thrive.
Now begin to draw the heartwood area of your tree. Deep in the trunk, a place where your power and solidity remain, even with all that is happening in your canopy…..
A Final Note
Closing Invocation
“Then all is still. The stones are crooned to sleep/ By the soft sound of rain that slowly dies;/ and cradled in the branches, hidden deep/In each bright bud, a slumbering silence lies.”
Singing the Earth
All photos copyright
Nature. Connected.
