So, I'll start with an admission: Throughout this challenge, though I've been relatively good with keeping up with my writing, I've been quite lax with my meditation. Sure, I've been doing alot of reiki work and visualizations, but have I been doing my regular 10 minutes of sitting daily? Not always. So, first of all, let me renew my commitment to 10 minutes of morning meditation a day, at least for these last 10 days. I did meditate today, although, I admit, it was this evening, and not in the morning. To make this challenge a little stricter on myself, I commit to not sitting down at the computer unless I have done my 10 minutes of sitting.
I'll report back how the sitting goes. . . And now, moving on. . .
To trees. Yesterday (Memorial Day) was my friend and reiki teacher Greg's birthday, and to celebrate, we decided to do a little reiki-style tree hugging. I already had a suspicion that I would enjoy our "outing" based on some tree/plant energy-sensing that we had done in Greg's backyard a few months ago during reiki class. I loved the feeling of the large trees, standing underneath them and feeling their soothing and grounding energy pour down over me. I felt, then, like I could stand--or, even better, lie--in that energy and absorb it indefinitely.
And indeed, yesterday's excursion was equally enjoyable, if not more so. We did have a little bit of a semi-scientific bent to our exploration yesterday, namely, to compare and contrast the energy of different trees, and to measure the size of the aura layers. We started out in Greg's backyard, and experimented with a relatively large oak tree that had an aura of about 30 feet. Pretty impressive, considering the average human aura extends two, maybe three, feet!
We quickly decided that we would have a more beneficial and enjoyable tree-sensing experience if we went into more of a park/woods trail-type setting. And so we did. We chose a biking/walking trail just outside of the Patapso State Park, across from the I-95/95 park-and-ride. As you can imagine, on a warm Memorial Day, alot of bikers chose the same trail, so we ended up moving to the side every couple of minutes.
Around dodging bikers, though, we did manage to do alot of tree sensing, which was a wonderful experience--especially doing it with Greg. Greg commented that he was happy to have someone equally "kooky" as him to explore this stuff, and I whole-heartedly agree. (As natural as the tree sensing felt at the time, it does feel weird and "kooky" to relay this in a blog now, I must admit. But, no matter.)
We were surrounded by so many huge trees, soaring a hundred feet or more. We chose one rather impressive one--a poplar, I think, although it was hard to verify with the leaves soaring way above our heads and out of view--that had an aura of over a hundred feet!! The aura of a living being, whether human or tree, has many layers, and we able to distinctly measure seven layers, just as a human aura would have. It truly was an incredible experience to stand in each of those seven different layers and to feel immersed in the distinctive energy of each. I had an equally incredible experience, later, while resting my back against one of the trees, allowing it to support me physically, I felt, emotionally
In feeling such a powerful connection, I was reminded of my astrological constitution, which is heavy in Taurean energy. Taurus is the energy of "fixed earth"--natural, steady, grounded, unmovable. It is often recommended for those heavy in this energy, or even with just a Taurus sun sign, to spend a good amount of high quality time in nature. Sadly, I rarely do so. I don't really carve any regular time out of my schedule to spend in nature. I am encouraged in this matter by the fact that I will be spending a month-long retreat rural Vermont this summer. I think that will be quite beneficial.
But in the meantime, I would like to set aside more time with nature. Starting tomorrow. Tomorrow morning I plan to plan to spend an hour in the woods, or in a park, connecting once again with the trees and also doing my morning meditation there. And then, I intend to make a once-weekly trip into nature until such time as I leave for Vermont (on July 13th). I think this will be a good start. :-)
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