To begin,
Simply settle yourself wherever you are.
Allow yourself to be comfortable,
To sink into the space that you are in.
Take a couple of slow,
Deep breaths.
Allow your breathing to soften.
Simply be where you are in this moment,
As you breathe slowly and gently,
And your body sinks deeply into relaxation.
As everything slows and softens,
Visualise yourself in the forest,
And it's springtime.
Gentle sunlight is coming through the canopy,
And a warm breeze stirs the air all around you.
And there are so many trees,
Young ones,
Ancient ones,
Saplings on the forest floor,
Grandfather oaks with their arms to the sky,
And grandmother beach dancing gently in the wind.
And I want you to see yourself as a seed,
The seed of a tree,
Whatever tree that feels right or familiar to you.
And you're so small to begin with,
This seed nestled in the ground,
Deep in the earth,
Tucked in under the floor of the forest,
Cradled in amongst the roots of the trees and plants around you.
And it feels good,
For this is a place from which you can grow,
And this is what you want to do now.
It's time to grow.
See your first shoot breaking through the seed,
Slowly rising through the earth to the surface,
All the way up to the forest floor,
Slowly growing and growing,
And time starts to pass.
Seasons come and go in the forest,
Moving from spring to summer,
And summer turns to autumn,
Turns to winter,
And turns to spring again.
And through each season you grow and change.
During the spring and the summer,
Warm sun and the rain nourish you.
They bring strength to your growth and your energy.
And then moving into autumn and winter,
Resting,
Conserving,
And keeping it all together,
Ready to bring forth more growth again in the spring.
And in this way,
The years pass from tiny sapling to young tree,
Growing and maturing and changing.
And as you grow and mature and change,
So the forest grows and matures and changes around you.
And this is much like human life.
The forest grows and changes,
Much like the tribe of people that we have around us in human life grow and change.
And as the seasons come and go,
As the years wax and wane,
We grow and we mature and we change.
So see yourself now,
Your tree roots deeply rooted,
Grounded,
Strong,
Taking in nourishment and gathering messages and wisdom from the land and your branches reaching high into the sky,
Leaves dancing in the wind and singing to the sun and the moon.
You are strong,
Wise and creative,
For what is more creative than to grow and change year on year on year.
How can any of us say that we are the same person now as we were a year ago,
Or even a season ago?
We grow,
We change.
We make new branches,
Grow new leaves,
Create seeds to scatter.
We share what we create with the world around us.
We share that with our human forest.
So just take a few moments to enjoy this feeling of being like a tree,
Deeply rooted and held in the ground,
Reaching high for the sun and the moon,
Cradled and encircled by the rest of the forest.
Know that this is a feeling that you can return to any time.
Remember your creative,
Strong,
Rooted tree self.
And then when you're ready to,
Just very gently return yourself to your human body.
Recall your human fingers and toes.
Bring your breathing back to normal.
Stretch your human body and open your eyes.
Know that you are back in the real world,
But knowing that your tree self is there anytime you have the need.
