A Talk With The Trees

This isn't polished, but it's a short story that helped me process some deep emotions. I'm sharing because I think it's important to know that not all work has to be polished to be healing.

The trees spoke to her. Sitting against the trunk of her beloved pine and breathing in

the cool autumn air, she could feel the resolve from the neighboring grove knowing that

their leaves were dying, but it was a necessary pruning for life to start again in the spring.

The death of the leaves also meant protection for the creepy crawlies that still needed to

move around under the fallen foliage as the snow covered the ground in winter. Loss was

hard, and understanding the ebb and flow of life didn’t make grieving any easier. But Shanti

wasn’t grieving the loss of a loved one, she was grieving the loss of herself.

Years of emotional, physical, and mental abuse confused her about her identity.

While she had escaped the daily torment of living with a cruel and vial man eight years

prior, the memories plagued her mind like they were still unfolding.  She fought to climb

out of the darkness with only a dim light to hold on to. Clawing her way back to life was an

arduous journey, but nevertheless, she was determined; for herself and her family.

Giving up had never been an option, and on the days she felt like she couldn’t

breathe, she let the trees breathe for her. Sitting under the cover of their branches calmed

her, and her connection to them grounded her in the present moment as the forest canopy

assured her that everything would be as it was supposed to.

Who was she? The old version of herself was broken. It’s how she became easy prey

for a predator in the first place. That wasn’t the person she wanted to be ever again. The

question beckoned; did she ever know who she was? How was she supposed to figure out

her identity when she didn’t have a grid of self to build on?  Anxiety crept in as so many

questions played like a marquee in the back of her mind. The wind blew through

the limbs, reminding her to stay centered, so she took a deep breath and listened to the

song the branches sung clacking against one another while they swayed in the whistling

breeze. The answers wouldn’t come if she allowed static to fill the space in her mind

where clarity needed to be.

 Shanti knew that while the chaos she experienced was not her fault,  she was held

accountable for the healing, like a star that is born only after its collapse. Her family was

thriving now. She was no longer trapped, at least on the outside.

She had built her life back from scratch. After she left her ex-husband, she found

herself  homeless with three children, living in domestic violence shelter, working a forty

hour week, and going to school full time. She worked diligently starting her days at 5am and

ending at 11pm, and she did it on her own. Shanti had no other family around at the time,

but she made it work.

Almost a decade later, her life looked picture perfect, but inside, she still felt

imprisoned by her mind. It felt ironic. It wasn’t until she found a place of peace with

Anthony, her new husband, that her internal struggles made their way to the surface. She

didn’t know how to live in peace. After everything she went through, it was the calm that

made her uncomfortable.

 How could she find solace and acceptance like the tall oaks that protected the

smaller saplings? They were strong not only in stature, but in the assurance of knowing that

whatever happened, happened. They kept reminding her of that truth, but she didn’t know

how to feel it.

 But who was protecting her? Guiding her? Did she have a tall oak in her own life?

She felt scared all the time. Shanti didn’t know how to feel safe in a body that didn’t

understand safety. She couldn’t remember a time when her body wasn’t in hostility. How

did the poplars stay rooted and satisfied never able to move from the soil, yet always

growing? They moved forward, upward towards the sun. Reaching the light was their goal, a

premise she understood well.

The wind was howling now tearing the remaining leaves from their petioles. She

looked up watching them twirl and spin whilst they dropped to the ground joyously

accepting the next part of their life cycle. Even as  the coming storm threatened to tear up

the shallow roots of the younger trees, the forest was in harmony.

She could see remaining bits of the sun peering through the boughs, their shadows

dancing on the ground next to her. The contrast of light and dark battling to be seen was

unescapable even in her place of comfort and solitude. She had come a long way, that she

couldn’t deny, but how much farther did she have to go? Now that she had reached the

light, the tentacles of the past tried to pull her back in. When would she be able to bury that

part of her life deep under the ground?  When would the nightmare stop trying to take her

back?

Shanti ran her hand across the strong roots protruding out of the ground giving her a

glimpse of the vast network that lay just underneath. The trees had a community, an

intricate communication system under the earth. Where was her network? She felt so

disconnected, but was she? Her pine told her she was asking the wrong questions. The

frequency behind her thoughts was not congruent with life. The tree was right. She was still

thinking like a victim and not a victor..

Her perspective changed, and with the shift, she felt the world around her come

alive cheering her on. Maybe her tall oak was Anothony, the man that loved her back to life.

Maybe her community was also a network, not close by, but connected online. Maybe the

joy of life was found in acceptance of the past even when she felt she was unable to move

just like the poplars.

Shanti began to recognize what the flora was trying to convey. How to find joy in

yielding to the current she found herself in. She had done everything she could do on

her own. She left an abusive home, she healed her body the best she knew how, she went

to therapy, but eventually, she hit a wall. None of those things helped her answer the

question of who she was. She started to wonder if surrender was a factor in identity too,

that it was more about BEing than DOing. Maybe it was simply about allowing the light she

desperately sought as she healed to shine for others allowing them to find their way out of

the darkness.

Maybe identity wasn’t about words or terms because defining who she was with

labels would only limit her. She could say she was a mother, a wife, or a

disabled woman on the spectrum. She could say that she liked chocolate and dogs. Those

would all be perfectly acceptable labels in society, but Shanti was more than that.

Everyone was more than that.

Maybe she didn’t have a grid for who she was because she needed to build it herself.

It was her time to decide who she wanted to be beyond words. She had a blank slate. “But

how do you become something that cannot be fully articulated with language?” she asked

touching the bark of her pine tree. Shanti waited for an answer while needles provided a

gently scented, yet prickly cushion for her to think. She never rushed the forest. She merely

waited for a feeling.

 That was how mother earth often spoke. Sometimes it was a synchronicity, but

often it was simply a sensation, a specific vibration, and suddenly, she felt

it. The trees had accepted her as one of their own. She wasn’t connected to their network

physically, but she was part of them.  She was part of everything. At their core, they were

the same as her. Their spirits were one. Together, they were the essence of love, truth, and

light.

That was the answer. Who she was would be found in BEing. There was no more

DOing. She couldn’t workshop her way into who she was created to be. Like the

trees, she just had to rest. The journey back to who she was was merely a remembrance of

her essence, of the source that runs through the fabric of existence, but why did the

process hurt so much?

 Deep down she knew the answer to that question.  There was a purpose in the

process. Before the grief, she never had an awareness of spirit, of source, or the heartbeat

of the earth like she did now.  She never had an outlet to safely channel her emotions or a

passion to engage in. It was the pain that allowed these things to emerge, and it was the

pain that allowed her to remember who she was at her core. Did she deserve the abuse she

experienced? No, but it happened. That couldn’t be changed. The only way to move forward

now would be to accept that it happened and rest. Meeting the hostility in her body with

more hostility only created a never-ending loop. That wasn’t the answer.

She made a choice. No longer was she going to wallow in the struggle but concede

to the ways of the infinite and allow it to take as much time as it needed. She fully

surrendered to the inner turmoil while focusing on the life she was creating.  Shanti had

Anthony and her children for the good days, and the oaks for the bad. She had a network via

wi-fi that linked her to friends who spoke life into her and reminded her of what she was

fighting for. She had people that believed in her.  That was how she would remain grounded

like her beloved pine because unlike the other trees, pine trees stayed in season year-round

showing that maybe she didn’t always need to be reborn, that maybe she could reach a

point where she was stable and consistent year-round. Ah, to hope.

 Shanti was done. No more courses. No more supplements. Those tools were no

longer working for her anymore. She wasn’t going to break through this final barrier until she

could learn to exist happily where she was. The rain began to fall. The storm was on top of

her now. She turned to the grove saying her goodbyes and retread over the uneven ground

ducking under the low branches as the cold droplets traveled along her cheeks.  Her home

was just ahead. She felt renewed with the new perspective that had enveloped her.

 Opening the door dripping wet like she had been baptized and cleansed

of the old, her children greeted her, Anthony smiled, and her phone dinged with

messages from friends.  As the rain pelted the window and the dark clouds blotted out the

sun, she smiled. No matter what the storm brought everything would be okay, and

whatever happened, happened. She knew her essence was light, and her power was in

surrender. That is where she would find herself.