The Aracuraria Chilean Pine Tree can live to 1,000 years, with its upside down paintbrush-like shape that might have prevented plant-eating dinosaurs from grazing the forest’s floor. Tasmania’s Trakine Forest is home to the 3,000-year-old Huon Pines, and rivers that nurture lobster-sized crayfish in its currents. And the Japanese Cedar, or Yakusugi, thrive and have done so for about 7,000 years. But the Inyo National Forest in California guards the estimated 4,843-year-old Bristlecone Pine, Methuselah – the oldest living tree on earth. There’s also the Norway spruce in Belarus and the Baobab in South Africa, and a few others that dot our globe, that existed before homo sapiens – and persist.
The Japanese have a beautiful tradition, the practice of Shinrin-yoku. It means, taking in the forest atmosphere, and is the therapeutic, rejuvenating process of intentionally surrounding oneself with nature. The practice encourages healing as it reduces stress just by calmly walking among the trees and foliage, absorbing the sights, smells, sounds of nature. It seems fitting that this tenacious life that emerge from the earth and securely anchor to it would be a source of healing our fragile bodies and minds, soothe our weary souls. It is a reminder to me that life persists even as the moments in my own life seem to zip by at sometimes frightening speed.
Today was the last (half) day of school for my sons, another marker passed, the next stage in view – time zips and hurtles by. But I am at a waiting stage – a marker that feels like for me a perpetual state. It’s as though everything around me moves, is in constant motion, still, I must wait. I have always come to accept the recognition that God is working whether or not I accomplish anything, but as I hang on by the tips of my fingernails to 49, it is especially uncomfortable. These nearly forty days of meditating on my fast-approaching place in 50, I don’t think I’ve come to any profound conclusions. Though, I am not sure what I expected, necessarily, to emerge from this 40-day practice, I’ve been engaging this practice in community.
The tree featured in the opening picture is Brazilian, but transplanted to the Singapore Botanic Garden. It is robust, with ancient roots, yet flourishes on another continent. It is a stunning reminder to me that though I have been moved to many places around the world and the country, my roots are ancient and robust and eternal. Everywhere I go, a forest of exotic, unique, healing foliage surrounds me – a community of souls that thrive and grow with me. So, will you wait with me today? Wait, listen, ponder, soak in the beauty around you, around me? May we be refreshed and rejuvenated today. If you have the time to find some nature, try some Shinrin-yoku, and please share your experience! If it is not possible just now, listen to the sounds in the link below and meditate on my picture here, or others you might have. Imagine. Dream. Have courage. Wait.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/321802282″ params=”color=236622″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
