Week 2: Cedar Shadows Deepen
Long Wet Nights, Deep Green
Reflection
Are you the Mother Tree
you ask?
Drawing your fingers up and down
the knotted
and knobbly bark
You wonder how many stories this
tree could tell
If she spoke in human tongues
You comfort yourself knowing
that your breath feeds her
just as her respiration gives you
the oxygen that your fleshy
body
to continue its journey
through her forested world
Evidence & Ecology
The shadow of the cedar, lengthy at this time of year, cast by a sun that barely reaches above the horizon.
This powerful presence is considered the “tree of life” by the Coast Salish and many other indigenous peoples of Western Coastal Canada.
Reaching towards the heavens, the stories relay that it arose out of acts of kindness. A true, constant expression of reciprocity; its body given freely for baskets, canoes, medicines and shelter.
As the plants and trees around it die off or retreat into dormancy in these dark, cold months the cedar remains a potent symbol of life.
So sacred, it houses the spirits of the ancestors. Met in ceremonies during the dark months. Relationships rekindled. Stories retold and passed on.
Its scent a unique and powerful reminder that its oils are invoked to cleanse spaces and people through the process of smudging…..sacredly burning sprigs of this tree.
What can you learn from the cedar tree?
Where can you align your intentions of reciprocity with this generous soul?
How can you invoke the spirit of the cedar in your life?
The Practices
Embodied Nature Meditation
Breathe with the Trees
Begin by standing, if that’s available to you, then lift and spread your toes as wide as you can. Lower them to the floor and imagine yourself rooting into the earth through the bottoms of your feet.
If you can do so safely, with no possibility of toppling over, gently close your eyes. Otherwise, lower your gaze to a focal point on the floor ahead of you and keep your gaze soft and unfocused…..
Somatic Witnessing
Soften into the shadows of a cedar tree (in person or through visualization) and let your body feel how deeply it is held by the forest and your interconnectedness with the more-than-human world
Allow the darkness to be a place of shelter.
Feel into your body. Are you softening? Are you holding?
Allow your presence to remain with this moment
Story of Place
A Conversation with the Season
Both smooth, ridged and stringy the fibrous bark of the cedar was the first tree I learned to easilly recognize when coastal BC became my home.
Tall and straight it seemed to welcome me into its parlour, wordlessly inviting me to walk amongst its roots; to become familiar with the way it stood, quietly holding space welcoming multitudes of creatures and plants in mutual symbiosis. The usnea draping itself throughout its branches. The delicate green strands waving and dancing with the winter breezes or heavily laden with gleaming droplets after another horizontal capricorn rain.
Moving silently among these beneficent giants , fellow occupants of this middle world I begin my search for The Mother Tree……
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)
Transcribing Cedar Shadows
Take yourself out to visit a cedar.
As you slowly walk through the forest, gently, wordlessly ask which tree will give you permission to come closer.
Do not over think.
Allow your intuition to guide you.
What tree is speaking to you?
When approaching this new friend, ask permission to connection through touch and offer thanks.
Gently lay your hands on the bark.
Stand or sit for as long as you’re able.
Take in all of it’s beauty.
Where do the branches begin?
How does the bark feel?
What lichens and mosses does the tree host?
Become immersed in the moment of sharing breath and space with the tree.
When you are ready return home.
Find a quiet spot and visualize your encounter with this particular tree. Allow the words to flow from your fingers as if coming directly from the tree itself……
A Final Note
Closing Invocation
“I go among the trees and sit still. All my stirring becomes quiet around me like circles on water.”
Singing the Earth
All photos copyright
Nature. Connected.
