|
 |
I hug trees. I also listen to them. They tell me to slow down, to breathe, to feel the small hairs on my arms moving in the breeze, and to remember that I’m a creature living on a planet spinning in space.
I’ve also had the experience of stopping in my tracks on the street, feeling called over to hug a tree that wants my attention. Trees like hugs too.
In summer I love to stand in the cool moist shade of their respirating leaves, sensing the life force in the tree sap pulsing just underneath the bark.
When I was a child I would lie on my back on a warm afternoon starring up through the branches of a favorite poplar or willow, each leaf a different shade of green in the changing light. I would hum ‘the Rainbow Connection’ while looking up into infinite worlds of shifting greens. Now I call that meditation.
Despite this there were many years when I would never have dared to hug a tree. Growing up in the 1980’s, the derogatory term ‘tree hugger’ was shorthand for a person who twirled around in Birkenstocks in a patchouli-laden haze at the gas station. I didn’t want to get lumped in with those people, so I kept my arboreal affection to myself.
I would go off into the woods to climb trees, spending hours lounging, dreaming, and playing in their limbs, or if I had to be somewhere more public I would sit with my back against a tree, the picture of a serious meditation student or a Victorian maiden.
Over time the term ‘tree hugger’ stopped having such a derogatory meaning, while I stopped caring as much about what other people thought of me. I learned, most profoundly from the kids I teach in my community garden, that it is o.k. to hug trees.
‘This is my favorite tree,’ a little girl told me recently after easily wrapping her small arms around the trunk of a peach tree for a good squeeze.
No matter how freaked out I feel, when I hug a tree I become grounded, clear, my heart rate slows. It only takes a few minutes. I give this advice to others who report back that my ‘method’ works for them too.
I know a recovering alcoholic actor who hugs a tree before every theater performance and tells me that it cures his jitters better than a nip ever did.
A prominent businesswoman surreptitiously hugs a tree before important meetings. Since adopting this practice she says that she has become markedly more relaxed at work.
There has never been anything political about my experience of hugging a tree. It is not for show, and so while I hug openly, I tend to do it discretely. I don’t want any comments, no ‘look at that!’, no ‘what she doin?’.
But recently I have become brazen. I wonder how I would have felt as a child if I had seen a neighbor or a teacher hugging a tree. I may have come out of the closet sooner, allowed myself that healing faster. If more people hugged trees openly it could start a ripple effect.
Now when I am feeling happy and expansive I hug trees in public with abandon. When I need solace, I still find a secluded spot for a tree to work its magic on my spirit.
Are you a tree hugger too? Send me a picture of yourself hugging a tree and I will post it here to encourage the closet huggers among us that it is not only o.k. to hug trees, it is a great gift to ourselves and each other.
| |
| 29 | 30 | 31 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 1 | 2 | | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
|
|
|