Margaret Cheasebro

If you are struggling with an issue in your life that weighs you down or stresses you almost beyond your ability to cope, take time to visit the trees you have come to appreciate. Many of them may be in your yard or around your neighborhood.

When you get to one of those trees, stand near it. Quiet your mind as much as you can and focus on the tree. Notice the texture of its bark. Touch the bark to sense how it feels to your hands. Is it rough, smooth, lumpy? Look higher up into the tree. Trace the branches with your eyes. Notice how the twigs and any remaining leaves that have not fallen attach to the branches and spread beyond them.

Do you see any nests in the tree, any birds perched there, perhaps squawking at you for standing so close to the tree? Are there any other wildlife? Once I saw a porcupine perched in a tall cottonwood. Another time I saw a snake winding its way up the trunk of a tree toward a bird's nest containing, it hoped, eggs to eat.

Then bring your gaze back down to the base of the tree. Notice the roots, how they splay out from the tree trunk and bury themselves into the ground, forming a strong, sturdy base for the tree. Imagine what it would be like for you to let strong pillars of support flow from your feet deep into the earth, letting the planet nurture you and help you feel stronger.

Once you feel well grounded as you enjoy that connection you have forged with the earth, stand quietly as you feel strength flow into you. Look up into the tree again. If you feel so inclined, say a prayer of blessing, gratitude or encouragement for it.

As you feel calmness resting like a warm, comfortable cloak around you, listen to impressions that go beyond the sounds of branches brushing against each other in a gentle breeze, beyond the rustle of dried leaves on the ground as a squirrel passes by. In that quietness that takes you into a place deep within yourself, listen for any impressions that come to your mind.

You may become aware of an encouraging thought, a supportive idea, a phrase to cling to when life seems too difficult, too overwhelming, too confusing. You may feel filled with love so deep that it fills you up and overflows in tears of joy.

Is the thought coming from the tree? Is it coming from the greater wisdom within you, from the divine presence that always surrounds you even when you forget it's there? You don't have to figure out where it's coming from. Just notice the message, repeat it so that you don't forget it, and thank the tree for helping you find your way into a meditative state that allowed that thought to give you the strength, courage and stamina to carry on.

When you feel ready, say goodbye to the tree and head back to your life full of challenges. No matter what you face, remember the message, the sense of love or joy that filled you with hope and strength. Carry it like a treasure in your mind and repeat it as often as you need to. Write it down somewhere so that in the coming days, when you need it most and have a hard time recalling it, you can find it and be strengthened once again by its powerful message.

When you feel stressed, sit under a tree or walk near where there are trees. Without a doubt, in these post-election moments, we have an extra need for stress reducing activities.

Focus on the trees. Notice their bark, branches, needles or leaves, the way they sway in a gentle breeze. Hear the sounds they make such as rustling leaves or branches rubbing against each other. Listen to the birds as they flit from branch to branch, then race off to find a different tree or land in the grass to eat seeds, worms, and insects. Feel the smooth or rough consistency of tree bark as you run your hands along their trunks.

Once you've experienced all those sensory details while immersing yourself in the experience of being around trees, you may discover that you feel calmer, a little happier. Maybe you feel less stressed over what's going on in the world around you. Though you may worry about what's happening, there is seldom much you can do about it.

Never underestimate the healing power of your time around trees and other aspects of nature. Being surrounded by trees, bushes, flowers, and bodies of water helps to heal us. That may be one reason some of us like to garden and why we feel sad when gardening season is over.

Connecting with nature not only has a way of bringing healing calmness to is, but it encourages us to take care of ourselves better by walking more. Walking also helps to boost our creativity. Getting your exercise on a treadmill may be good exercise, but walking in nature does something extra to activate creative ideas. It triggers our brains to blossom with all kinds of positive impressions.

If you have a dog, when you need to generate new ideas, take your dog for a walk. It will benefit both of you. Your dog will love it, and you will prime your wellspring of ideas to gush like a fountain.

These days, as we've gone through the long season leading up to elections and are now in the post-election season with all its temporary uncertainties, we need more than ever to take time for walking. If you can walk among trees and other beautiful aspects of nature, your stress will slide away more easily. So take a walk, and let go of stress. You deserve to feel good!

I joined two neighborhood friends in the front yard of one of their homes. We sat under a huge mulberry tree whose big green leaves spread over much of the front yard.

"When the leaves of the mulberry fall this autumn," the owner said, "they fall all at once. One day they're there, and the next day, they're on the ground."

Just as all of us humans are different and handle the changing seasons in our own ways, so trees have their own way of letting go of the leaves of spring and summer to step into autumn and winter. For them, it's built into their tree-ness to handle leaf shedding based on signals they get from nature.

For us, when we face change, whether it's seasonal change or a change in our life circumstances – a change in jobs, the loss of a loved one, a move from one place to another, a different way of doing something familiar – we often get our signals from our own fear or apprehension of facing something different.

Will we like the new job, can we handle the tasks, will other people on the job accept and respect us? How can we survive without the person we lost? Will we ever get over the grief, the loneliness, the sudden change of almost every detail of our life? Will the place we're moving to be a pleasant one surrounded by the activities and the kinds of people that we have come to expect? Why does someone want to do a particular task in a different way when we can see there is only one sensible way to handle it?

When we face change, we recognize the need to take one step at a time through all the aspects of adjusting to that change. There's no easy way to do it. We just have to move through it, putting one foot in front of the other with determination.

No matter how hard the change in life circumstances seem, we can look to trees for inspiration. No matter what happens to trees – a seasonal change, the beginning of life as a young sprout or the end of life as a dying tree – they find a way to support each other. The stump of a cut down tree continues to be nurtured by trees around it so that it remains alive. A young sprout finds itself in the protective shade of a larger tree. No matter what the seasonal change, trees see in other trees that the change is handled with innate wisdom.

As trees prepare to move into the changes brought about by cooler weather, how can we as family, friends, and neighbors help each other face changes that inevitably come to us at one time or another? A kind word, a visit, sharing a chore, keeping in touch with someone who has moved away, a smile – the simplest things help to make life a little easier during change.

As you notice trees changing this fall season, remember that change is easier when we let people know they're not alone. Mother Teresa once told people who wanted to contribute financially to her ministry that, instead, they should take time to let people in their own community know they are not alone. We're all in this together, the trees and us, and we handle change better when we know others are encouraging and supporting our various journeys.

I have a little backyard garden where I grow tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, asparagus, sweet red peppers, beets and carrots. It has been fun sharing some of my bounty with neighbors. The young neighbor family whose backyard abuts my backyard, is fun to interact with. They have two preschool kids who get so excited when I give each of them a carrot or a tomato. Sometimes their dad sends them to the fence between our yards with a couple of sweet juicy apples from one of their trees.

I sometimes think about that apple tree and how it and my garden have become a sharing conduit between my neighbors and myself. How wonderful that we can still be connected in ways that help us all feel cared about and appreciated.

I walked with friends today through the neighborhood for exercise. Seeing so many trees along the way made our walk even more beautiful and provided shade when we needed it. Trees have so much to offer us. I wanted to capture some of what they can provide in my book, Healing with Trees: Finding a Path to Wholeness. When people see me around town, they sometimes make a special effort to tell me how much that book means to them.

Trees have so much to offer, and I am delighted when people discover they too can have a connection with trees. People may enjoy a shady spot under tree branches to rest in. Or they may sense a welcoming feeling coming from certain trees. It can be an adventure to notice trees as you take a walk. One thing most people notice is how many trees there are all around us. It's fun to see what happens as you acknowledge the trees you pass and appreciate their beauty.

Sometimes that focus on trees and other plants can create a connection between you and a neighbor or someone you didn't know before. As I discovered with my garden and my neighbor's apple tree, trees and other plants have a way of helping us reach out to each other as we create loving community connections.

As I sat in my chiropractor's backyard waiting for him to see me, I noticed many beautiful trees growing in his yard. I saw a peach tree laden with ripe peaches, an aspen, a spruce, an elm, and blossoming sunflowers tall enough to be trees.

Do they ever wish they were a different kind of tree? I wondered. I suspect not, because the trees have such distinct personalities and tasks that are just right for them. That may seem a little silly, but I believe it's true. Ask almost anyone who spends time around trees, and they most likely will tell you that trees have their own sense of purpose and their own individuality.

As I gaze at the aspen with birds flitting in and out of its branches, I wonder how it would describe itself. Words came into my mind. Were they from the tree? From my own imagination? I don't know. If it was from my imagination, it's kind of fun to take a tree imagination journey to see what you will discover.

What I heard in my mind about the aspen tree was, "I am welcoming. I stand with open arms. When challenges come, I recognize the gift in the challenge." As I watched its quaking leaves, I sensed it had lots of experience in seeing gifts in the challenges it faces – strong winds, people wanting to cut it down, drought, extreme temperatures.

The towering spruce behind it seemed confident. As I wondered how it would describe itself, I noticed how its topmost branch pointed straight up to the sky. Trees are very good at grounding themselves deep into the Earth with their roots. They are also good at connecting upwards into the sky to the place from which they absorb rain and snow and other gifts from nature. Perhaps that connection is what made the spruce feel so confident.

The tall elm behind me standing near the backyard entrance was filled with several kinds of birds. One small bird with bluish gray feathers on its body and a white patch on top of its head grasped ridges of trunk with its feet and walked upside down toward a fork in the tree. How interesting, I thought. It trusts the tree and its surroundings well enough to walk upside down!

Just then, the chiropractor waved for me to come into his office. Perhaps on my next visit to the chiropractor, I will get to take another tree imagination journey.

If you're looking for something fun, free and entertaining to do, try taking your own tree imagination journey. It's safe and relaxing.

If you've spent time among trees, you may have enjoyed their individual shapes and colors. You might even have felt more peaceful, more connected to nature.

Trees, flowers, bushes, all kinds of plants can help us to feel more consciously aware of our connection to nature. It's easy to rush through an experience because we're so busy, but if we give ourselves time to spend with trees, we might feel calmer and more relaxed. The fiction and non-fiction books I've written about trees or with trees as a character all developed as the result of calming, healing experiences I've had around trees. Those experiences told me there's a great deal more to trees and their abilities than many of us realize.

Though some people perceive plants as incommunicative, insensitive and in a vegetative state, more scientists and biologists are coming to recognize they are much more than that. One of the most recent books about this growing awareness, The Incredible Journey of Plants, was written by plant neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso, who studies the intelligence and behavior of plants. He is the director of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology (LINV) in Florence, Italy.

An article about his book appeared April 5, 2020 in a United Kingdom publication, The Guardian. To see it, go to https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/05/smarty-plants-are-our-vegetable-cousins-more-intelligent-than-we-realise.

He has studied how plants are able to problem solve, memorize, communicate, and how they have social lives. Unlike humans, plants do not have a brain. Instead, Mancuso said, they convey that brain-type function throughout their entire structure. They are, in a sense, one huge brain. In addition, they are aware of themselves and of what is around them. In The Guardian article, Mancuso is quoted as saying, "My personal opinion is that there is no life that is not aware of itself. For me, it's impossible to imagine any form of life that is not able to be intelligent, to solve problems."

Plants are more sensitive than animals, he says. "That is not an opinion," he told The Guardian. "This is based on thousands of pieces of evidence. We know that a single root apex is able to detect at least 20 different chemical and physical parameters, many of which we are blind to."

In his book, Mancuso explains that plants are social and communicative both in their structures above ground and through their roots. Other life forms have subtle electromagnetic fields, and plants are able to detect them. They warn of danger, try to scare off predators, and attract pollinating insects by using chemicals and scents. When caterpillars chew on corn, for example, the corn sends out a chemical distress signal that is responded to by parasitic wasps who follow that signal and attack the caterpillars.

Plants detect sound and vibration too. That's how they find running water, which they need to survive. Because they have such a slow pace of life, it's easy for people to overlook the intelligence of plants. They have learned how to survive for centuries in sometimes stark environments.

The idea that humans have reached the highest form of life on Earth is a very dangerous idea, Mancuso believes. "When you feel yourself better than all the other humans or other living organisms, you start to use them," he told The Guardian. "That is exactly what we've been doing."

Though Mancuso has his detractors, more and more botanists are embracing the study of plant neurobiology. People are becoming more open to the idea of plants as intelligent species that have their own ways of behaving.

The next time you walk among trees or other plants, consider that you may be sharing space with some amazing aspects of nature. If you take time to meditate among trees or other plants, you might discover that it's easier to maintain the quiet peacefulness of a meditative state.