Simple Lessons from a Tree at Goldmyer

Oct. 03
I was invited to spend a weekend at the Goldmeir Hot Springs. The five of us arrived Friday evening. Saturday after breakfast, the other four decided to do the eight miles hike up to Snow Lake. I stayed, taking my time wandering amongst the old growth forest. The big trees, more than four arm lengths in girth, beckoned me.
Ten minutes up the trail, I stood in front of one of the largest trees I have seen in this area. It had rooted itself on the bank about four feet above the trail. Its roots were exposed above earth like tangled serpents. A smaller tree grew out of this mass of roots. The uncle tree and the nephew tree seem to have a communicative relationship that keeps both healthy and vibrant. I put my hands on the uncle tree’s coarse bark and felt its masculine energy, stable and calming. When I put my forehead on the tree, I realized that my head and hands were stuck there by tree sap. I laughed out loud, put a drop of the clear sap onto my tongue and enjoyed the clearing fragrance throughout my body.
Trees are more like human beings than most of us think. They have a physical body; they have energy; and they have spirit and soul. They have personalities and character. Each kind of tree has its unique configurations of energy. They get ill from time to time. They get physical injuries like us. They get worms, bacteria and viruses just like us. They learn lessons and grow knots around the injured and ill areas. Once in a while, one gets eliminated by lightning.
I raised my head and saw the biggest knot on the tree. That moment I understood that trees face obstacles just like us. This knot bigger than my two hands testifies to that. The old tree adapted itself to the change and continued to live. I grew up in the Temple of Agriculture in Beijing and played among trees more than three hundred years old. They had so many knots all over that they were easy to climb for a six year old. We all had our own preferred tree as our ”houses,” and invited other kids to be our guests. I didn’t appreciate those gnarly trees then because at night the moonlight made them look grotesque and frightening. Now to me, the knots mean courage to heal and to continue to grow.
We are like trees. Trees are still intrinsically connected with their surroundings. We forget. Trees must give and receive to live. The more they give, the more they receive. Just as they give off oxygen and take carbon dioxide, they give off energy we humans need, and take away unnecessary energy in us. We know that especially well when we practice qigong by trees, or do healing around a plant. The plants get healthier and more vibrant from us sloughing off our “sick” qi. Information in many shapes and forms are exchanged when we calm our running minds and attune to the trees. Every moment of their lives they are constantly connected with earth, sky and their surroundings. We forget. Sometimes we forget for years and generations, until something in us and around us goes terribly wrong. The less we give, the more our happiness diminishes. One day we wake up and ask ourselves, “Why am I alive? Am I needed?” Ask a tree.
Trees cannot hoard. They cannot just get and not give. They don’t have bank accounts. All they have they store in their roots, their trunk and their leaves and branches. Few human beings still have that kind of confidence, trust and faith in the bigger. I remember one autumn afternoon, walking with many thoughts around and in my head, I looked up and was stunned by life. A baby tree with its trunk barely a handful in girth was in flames—its leave in every shade of red: orange red, apricot red, fire red and blood red—the purest and boldest colors of life. Behind it, the sky as if answering to the baby tree, illuminated itself into a transparent blue. The essence of life flashed itself in a moment, like the most touching drama on the stage of life, the moments you can recall to your friends but could never quite catch with words.
The next morning after a night of storm, I walked on the same path again and saw only thin, bare and lonely branches. All the flames have faded onto the ground, though still touchingly red, orange, apricot, fire and blood. The colors are unchanged, but location has changed. The sky behind the bare branches continued to be blue and pure and an expanse of life. Another tree next to the baby tree had just turned a glorious golden yellow, assuming the center of the stage of autumn. I felt my brows furrowing, don’t I remember seeing this tree and that tree last year this time? Yet every time, my sigh joins the earthbound leaves after my exclaim decorates the changing leaves on the tree. The beauty of the leaves last but a year. The beauty of humans last but a few decades. I exclaim and sigh every year with the leaves, while the trees continue living year after year. And what about the sky? It continues being for millions of years, millions of life times. So how can my heart be with the sky? Can my heart understand the expanse of the sky? How does one have the faith and trust of a tree winter after winter? Thoughts went around and around. My head began to ache.
That evening in our Image Therapy healing class where we usually go right into healing related practices, I wanted everyone to practice the Big Tree standing meditation which is more of an individual qigong practice. Students were surprised of the sudden change of curriculum. We stood for half an hour. In one moment of that half an hour, I became an old tree in the winter, with dark, bare branches against a grey sky. An understanding spread through my body. The confidence, the trust, and the faith don’t come from the head, or reasoning. Being connected to the earth and sky, it’s a knowing, a knowing that every tree is born with, a knowing that we are born with, too, but forget. This knowing is found again by a few people who live and wonder on earth, with nothing but their connection to the earth and sky. They have come in touch with the flow of eternity. Taoists call them immortals because they are free from fear, free from disconnect.
I understand now why for years we practice being a tree. It takes time to relax our body so it’s open. It takes time to relax our energy so it’s calm. It takes time to relax our spirit to truly, unjudgingly feel, exchange, and understand. Openness allows one to give and to receive. Pay respect to the tree and the tree will open up. The respect in you will open your body and heart for receiving as well. The oldest trees in the world have been living for four to six thousand years. They live in the White Forest of California. They live in the desert oasis of Africa. They live in the tropical forest of Mexico… These endless wells of living wisdom are here, living with us, and open to us to connect and remember with.

Big Tree Standing Meditation is one of ZY Qigong’s central practices, where one stands as a great big tree, connecting with the Earth and the cosmos. For more information about qigong (ancient Chinese practices with vital life force), visit our website: www.zyqiogng.org