Meditate with Grandmother Sitka Spruce

Hello, fellow Seekers!

This week’s guided experience is a short tree meditation. Rather a giant tree meditation.

The other day, I was hiking in the Siuslaw National Forest. I wandered down the trail to one of the giant trees that happens to be in that forest, a Sitka Spruce. This Grandmother Sitka Spruce is over 500 years old, is well over 200 feet tall, and 15 feet in diameter.

She’s enormous and just so beautiful! She shows her age. She’s rugged with wrinkles, wounds, broken branches and is covered in moss and ivy. She’s witnessed a lot over 500 years. She has the most glorious energy. You can see her in the video version of the guided meditation below.

We live in these animal bodies but most of the time we operate in a paved and mechanical world. We need to get away from that from time to time. We need to connect with the living world.

For this meditation, I suggest you go outside to find a tree or plant you can sit by and touch. You could even just sit on the ground to connect with the earth. If you can’t get outside, sitting with and touching a house plant will work too. Or, your pet for that matter.

Follow along with the video here.

It is said that you can reach awakening without doing meditation. I believe that because it’s about bringing presence to every moment. When you can be fully present as you go through your daily activities, you can practice becoming free from the reactivity of your mind. You’ll also discover the exquisite and subtle details of this miraculous world.

Bringing presence to the moments of daily life tends to be hard for most of us humans. It’s challenging because of this powerful creative brain that likes to evaluate and narrate everything. When it’s active, we aren’t present. Doing meditation brings stillness. The stillness makes room for our stuff to float up. Still presence gives us a chance to see it clearly, love it, grieve it, and release it. Presence is a muscle. We learn to allow everything to come and go.

Presence reveals Freedom.

Find a tree that you can be next to and touch. Take a cushion or chair, whatever you want. Maybe a tree in your yard or maybe there’s a park nearby.

Approach your tree, or whatever alive being you’ve chosen to meditate with, and ask if it’s okay to sit there and to touch it. I asked Grandmother Sitka if I could sit within her roots and put my hands on her roots. I immediately felt the flow of energy between us. I connected with her. We exchanged energy – giving and receiving. It made me weepy because the flow felt so strong and intimate.

I shifted the camera for the video so you can see up into this massive grandmother tree. You also can hear the rushing creek in the background.

I like to start by just noticing my senses… hearing, feeling, the energy of sounds coming and going. Then tune into the places where your body connects with the world.

Sit quietly touching the plant or ground. Feel your body and where it contacts the world. Feel the energy of the living things around you. Rest in the quietness. Whenever your mind wanders, come back to your breath or feeling the tree.

I felt my seat on grandmother’s roots and the ground. I felt my hands on her rough, bark-covered roots. I felt my feet and my shoes on the earth.

You might want to take off your shoes and socks. Let your feet connect directly with the earth. Breathing in and letting go.

Breathe deeply into your belly like a wave moving up through your lungs. Fill your whole body. Release your breath, letting go. The breath is a wave coming in and a wave going out. You just notice how your natural breath is and let it be. Just be with it.

Be with all the experiences you have during this meditation. Notice sights, sounds, smells, tastes, sensations, emotions. Be with all of it, letting it come and letting it go. You will notice, if you don’t interfere with it, that everything comes and everything goes. Not interfering is our biggest challenge.

This is what is, in this moment. It’s okay to experience all of it, even the uncomfortable bits. Just be with whatever you experience. Care about it.

Feel the energy and communication moving between you and your tree and the earth and the whole universe around you. Open to the connection with everything and rest in it.

Remember, we’re animals. I believe it’s important for us to be among other living things on a regular basis, connecting and feeling. This is how we develop our intuition and empathy. This is how we can survive and thrive in reciprocal relationships with all other humans, creatures, plants, and the planet.

I encourage you to rest in this presence and connection until you feel like you’re complete.

Remember…

Love yourself,

Act like it,

Share it,

and that will Change the World.

Be Well,

Dr. Inis