Seeing the Power of Unity
While on a hike recently, I began to connect with the trees, birds and small animals I encountered while on the trail. The summer air, heavy with humidity, supported the energy of closeness in the forest. Although I was the only human present, I knew I wasn’t alone. There was a magical and yet visceral, grounded feeling that seemed to emanate from the forest. If I turned around, it was as if I would find something standing behind me, wanting to engage. I drew on my shamanic experience in working with the Fae. I smiled to myself, knowing there were benevolent spirits around me, perhaps curious about this human entering their rich, non-verbal world.
As I turned on another trail, I came across a maple tree that had at some point broken over the path, creating a tall, beautiful arch over the trail. Covered with moss and damp with recent rains, the tree’s archway seemed to welcome me through a doorway to another realm. I touched the bark and confessed aloud that I was sorry that it had to die. I heard her reply. She said, “It is my time. I do not grieve, as I accept that I will live on giving back to this forest as it has supported my life force since I was a seed. My wisdom of living here, which includes the wisdom of trees before me, will inform the new life being brought forth. My body will nourish and sustain many others. This is the cycle of reciprocity of our world.” Out of all the beings I spoke to in the forest that day, she was the only one who spoke with such clarity. Her reply filled my heart as I walked on. My mind began to deeply meander, comparing the world of nature beings and nature spirits with the world we reside in.
Long ago, humans thrived in a world where sharing, reciprocity and community existed. The Ancestors would be strangers, lost in our modern world, where we exist in hierarchy, individualism and “getting ahead” no matter what the cost to other humans and other life forms. I imagine that the Ancestors might be even appalled by this concept: equating our world to selfishness, greed and most importantly, a way of living that is unsustainable. If we began to live our lives graciously like this maple tree, we would, one by one, create a world in which every being is honored in a heart of unity.
When I returned from my hike, I picked up the book, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. As divine intervention would have it (as it usually does!), I randomly flipped to page 15. Here, Kimmerer writes about the fruiting of trees. She explains that mast fruiting trees (specifically trees that make nuts) take years making sugar, saving up for its creation of rich, life-sustaining protein and fat, by storing starch in their roots. Much like saving up funds, the trees only begin making nuts when the “account” is in surplus. Unlike humans, who might settle onto rich land, with the fortunate ones reaping abundance while others possibly waiting many impoverished years to receive a return, Kimmerer writes, “if one tree fruits, they all fruit - there are no soloists.”
She continues:
Not one tree in a grove, but the whole grove; not one grove in the forest, but every grove; all across the county and all across the state. The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What happens to one happens to all. We can starve together and feast together. All flourishing is mutual.
If humans could only let go of the “me vs. them” mentality and sink into our true nature that does not contain modern hierarchal paradigms, we might be creators of a newly shared world of reciprocity and unity. What will it take to surrender to the reality that what is occurring for one affects all?
