The Shamanic Tree Meditation
The most ideal way to begin is to stand outside, bare feet upon bare earth, near running water such as a stream or river. Choose the exact spot which feels the most right to you. Stand up straight, eyes closed. Use whatever technique you might know to clear your mind of distracting thoughts. When you have brought yourself to a sufficently receptive state, you may then proceed.
Bring your awareness to your feet. Visualize them becoming the base of your trunk. Your toes spread and extend, becoming roots which slowly but surely penetrate the ground in all directions around you and downward. Additional roots spread from all sides of what once were your feet. Feel the texture of the earth as your roots wend their way more and more deeply into its rich soil. If there are stones, or even boulders, buried within the ground, let your roots deftly find there way around them. Feel the nurturing moisture that your roots are reaching for, and especially concentrate your root development wherever you find it. Grow your roots well into the ground until you have established an amazingly strong, interwoven bond with the Earth. Now take some time to allow your awareness to fully imbibe this sensation
When you feel ready, begin to let your awareness reach back up from the ground. Feel your legs fusing together into a single trunk as the transformation into living wood slowly but steadily spreads all the way up through your torso. Feel the solid strength which arises within you, a strength which resists the pull of any wind yet still allows just enough flexibility to bend and sway with it as needed. Feel your skin turning into a thick yet comfortably pliant layer of bark, protecting you like living clothing.
Feel your arms and head become the large main branches spreading outward and upward from your central trunk. Spread them all around and above you so that all the smaller branches and leaves which sprout everywhere from them, in all sorts of patterns, can catch every ray of sun that you can reach. Keep growing, becoming larger and larger until you can provide cooling shade for all creatures who seek it. Stretch to feel your leaves absorbing the sun’s light and warmth and energy.
Feel every breeze whispering around and through you, gently swaying your branches and flickering your leaves. You are aware of every breath of air, every cloud passing overhead, every bird which stops to rest upon your living twigs, every squirrel vaulting acrobatically through your lofty heights.
Feel the power of the countless years dedicated to achieving the fullness and greatness of your new form. For the years carry a true and unfathomable power, and nothing else living stands as long and as tall as a tree. Take some time to let this feeling completely fill you from your deepest rootlets to the tips of your highest leaves. You are the World Tree standing at the center of all things.
When you feel you have come to the fullness and completeness of your experience as a living tree, and once you are ready, you may now begin to return to your original form. Slowly become aware of yourself as a breathing human being, and when you feel your bare human feet upon the bare earth once again, gently lower your arms and open your eyes. Feel the vibrational responses from all the objects and living things around you to the energetic form of a tree which seemed to have been standing for untold years right on the spot where you as a human now stand. Gently and respectfully step away from that spot and re-enter your normal life, taking with you all that you have gained from this experience.
By: Gerald Jay
