Are you ready to meditate with Kari?
Climb up into your bed and get super comfortable.
Make sure that everything is just right in your room so that you can relax your body and let go of your busy,
Busy day.
It was a cloudy day,
Possibly rain in the sky.
It felt like rain.
Oakman could feel the rain,
He could feel it in the air around him.
Oakman was a very,
Very,
Very tall tree.
He was one of the biggest redwood trees in the forest.
The size of his trunk at the base was as big as a house.
It would take you a couple of minutes to walk all the way around,
And his reach to the sky,
The tallest of his branches,
Was so tall it was hard to see the ground below.
There was advantages to being this tall.
Oakman was above all of the other trees.
If he looked at the world around him from the tallest point of his tree,
Then the world just looked like a bunch of trees just a little bit down below,
And the rest of the world was sky.
Blue skies,
Grey skies,
White skies,
Orangey-purple skies,
Depending on the day,
Depending on the time or the moment,
But you could safely say the most of Oakman's view in life was the sky and the tops of other trees that he barely had to look down to see.
If he looked down at himself from the base of his trunk,
He got to experience the ground below,
The earth around his roots.
He purposefully sunk into that feeling in his roots,
Sometimes he whittled them around as if he was whittling toes,
As if he was a person.
Sometimes the wind would move his branches so much he felt like he got arms,
Like a person would have.
Sometimes the top,
The very,
Very top of his tree would sway vividly from side to side and he'd feel like he was saying yes or no,
Depending on the wind's direction and which way it took his tallest,
Tallest branches.
Oakman sometimes got to see people,
Sometimes people would visit the forest where he was,
Sometimes people would lean their bodies against his trunk and he would get a whole new sensation that travelled through all the way from his roots to the top,
Tallest branches.
When people touched him or leaned against him,
He got to sense what they felt like,
What their roots,
Their trunk,
Their branches felt like,
But really he was thinking about their feet,
Their legs,
Their bodies,
Their arms,
Their heads.
Oakman liked it when children interacted with his trunk.
He liked children's energy a lot.
They felt happy and joyful most of the time,
Light,
Fun,
Excited.
He liked those feelings that he got from when children touched him.
But one particular day,
A child reached out and touched Oakman.
The child had tears in his eyes and Oakman felt a very strange feeling coming from the child.
Oakman started to ache inside.
Oakman felt heavy,
Dense,
Tired.
He didn't know why.
He was expecting his usual sensations of happiness,
Joy,
Giddiness,
Excitement.
He didn't feel any of those things.
In fact,
What the boy felt like was very foreign to him at first,
But then the more Oakman tuned into the energy of the boy,
The more he understood that the boy must be sad.
Oakman couldn't do anything about the boy being sad.
He's a tree.
He couldn't talk to the boy.
He couldn't reach down and hug the boy.
The movement of Oakman was dependent on the wind.
He couldn't move by himself.
If he could,
He'd pull his roots from the ground and go for a stroll whenever he felt like it.
He couldn't do that.
He was a tree.
So he just stayed there.
The boy turned around and slumped his back on Oakman and slid down until he landed on the ground.
The boy pulled his knees into his chest and put his arms around his knees to give himself a hug.
The boy let his head fall into his arms.
And then Oakman started to hear noises.
Not laughter,
Not talking,
Not giggles,
Not screams.
Whimpers.
Tiny,
Quiet whimpers.
And Oakman realized the boy was crying.
What could he do?
Oakman did not know what to do at all to help the boy.
He felt so sad for the boy.
Oakman himself was full of the boy's energy and the boy's energy was so heavy and sad.
Oakman was hoping for a gust of wind.
Maybe a gust of wind would move one of his branches and he would be able to reach down and stroke the boy's back as if to say,
It's okay.
Don't be sad.
Tell me all about it.
Tell me everything that's happened.
It's probably not as bad as you think.
Oakman was wishing for all the things he could say.
All the things he could say through that stroke on the boy's back.
Obviously,
He couldn't talk to the boy because he was a tree.
But maybe his branch could deliver the energy of his words.
Maybe as he touched him with his branch,
He could let the boy feel that he was there and he could support him.
But there was no wind.
No wind.
No breeze.
The air was still.
And the boy carried on with his tiny little whimpers.
There wasn't anyone else with the boy.
There was no indication of why he was crying.
There was no one there to make him feel better.
The boy was all alone.
Just him and Oakman.
And all the hundreds of trees around them.
But Oakman's world got very,
Very small.
All there were were just him and the boy.
He forgot about the sky.
He forgot about the other trees that he could see from his tallest point.
Oakman just felt sad.
Without even realizing,
Oakman's branches started to droop.
His leaves started to curl in on themselves.
The top part of his tree,
The tallest,
Tallest part,
Started to bend over a little bit.
As if he was curling in on himself.
Slumping down.
Carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
He wasn't spry and bouncy and bright.
He was dull and tired and heavy.
Oakman focused on the boy and the boy wiped his nose on his sleeve and sniffled.
And then went quiet.
No longer whimpering.
No longer crying.
But still his head was leant against his arms.
Resting there as if he was holding himself still.
Oakman had an idea.
He thought about his own energy.
Thought about how he normally feels.
Oakman normally feels good.
Oakman feels full of life.
Full of sun.
Full of energy.
Full of earth.
Full and bright and fresh.
He normally feels good.
He decided to separate his feeling from the boy's feeling.
Two separate feelings existing in his tree at the same time.
He could feel the boy.
He could feel his sadness and his pain.
But he could also now feel his normal energy.
He could feel his light.
His brightness.
His strength.
His sturdiness.
His life force.
He could feel all of it.
And Oakman decided that he could focus on his own energy.
His own feelings.
His own body.
He wasn't pushing the boy's energy away.
He wasn't pushing the boy out of him.
He wasn't saying,
Go away boy,
You don't make me feel good.
He wasn't doing any of that.
He was just separating the two.
The two energies existing inside of Oakman at the same time.
A sad part.
And his regular,
Happy,
Normal,
Full of life part.
The more Oakman focused on his regular,
Normal,
Full of life part,
The more his branches started to perk up.
The more the leaves on his branches opened.
The more he reached higher and taller to the sky.
Feeling like his normal self again.
Even though the boy was still there.
The boy's energy was still there.
He could feel it.
So,
So strong.
But he wasn't choosing to make the boy's energy important.
He was choosing to make his own energy important.
He was choosing to focus on his own body and his own feelings.
And he hung in there and felt good.
He felt good once again.
And then something magical happened.
Without even thinking about it,
Oakman started to flow into the boy.
Oakman took the biggest breath.
He breathed in through his leaves.
All of his hundreds and hundreds of leaves.
He breathed in the sky.
He breathed in the fresh air.
He breathed in the sunlight.
And he sent it all the way down to his trunk.
All the way down.
All the way down through the boy's back.
Into the boy's little body.
Nothing changed at first.
But then the boy lifted his head.
He uncurled his legs and let them drop in front of him straight.
His feet started to move like windscreen wipers moving side to side.
The boy lifted his head up and leaned his back fully,
Deeply,
More closely against Oakman.
And Oakman took another big,
Deep breath.
He breathed in through his leaves.
He breathed in through his trunk.
He breathed in through every single part of his tree.
He sucked the energy up from the earth in his roots.
And he pulled it up so strong.
So,
So powerfully strong that it zapped straight into the back of the boy.
All of his joy.
All of his life force.
Everything good about Oakman was being pushed into the boy.
Oakman wasn't trying.
He was just being his natural self.
He was just sharing his light.
Sharing his energy.
Sharing his love.
Sharing the sun,
The earth,
The moon,
The stars,
The sky.
Sharing everything that he was and sending it into the boy's back.
Soon,
The boy stood up.
He reached his hand out and touched the tree.
He had a little,
Very faint,
Smile on his face.
His cheeks still looked pink and puffed from crying.
But the smile,
The smile was priceless.
The smile,
The smile was priceless.
Oakman felt even happier.
And once again,
He delivered all that he was through the boy's hand.
Pushed it.
Gave it willingly.
Oakman shared himself.
And the boy received it.
The boy's smile got even bigger.
And then,
As if he knew.
As if he sensed.
Exactly what Oakman had done for him.
The boy said,
Thank you.
That's all he said.
Oakman felt the little boy's hand pull away from his trunk.
He watched as the boy put his hand in his pocket.
And slowly started to walk away.
And then,
After a few minutes.
The boy was gone.
Oakman didn't sense the boy's energy in his body anymore.
He couldn't feel it.
If he really,
Really tried.
There was the slightest,
Slightest trace of it left.
But not very much.
Oakman decided to look at the sky.
Look at the tops of the other trees.
And then,
All of a sudden,
There was a gust of wind that blew him side to side.
Oakman,
If he could,
Would have smiled.
The End