On Trees

Sitting in Satsang with a giant Mashatu Tree in Botswana

Trees for me have always been that little bit magic. When I sit under their temple limbs, on pews made of twisted bark, my thoughts break free of constraints and are lifted skywards by rustling leaves and dancing light. I cannot help but feel infinity, silence and a deep coursing joy when sitting in satsang with such an ancient soul. 

These rambling thoughts of mine are mirrored very poetically by this piece I found recently by Herman Hesse in his book  Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte........ I hope you enjoy it as much as I did

  “For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. 

 Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”