Shaking the Tree: A Meditation on Compassion
There’s a shake up in nature happening right now as it seeks balance into the next season. Have you felt it in the air? We are shaking the tree! We are dancing to the rhythm of the falling leaves in hopes to bear fruit in our next season.
Every autumn the leaves on the trees pull back their summer vibrance. They saturate the world in a colorful celebration that stuns us in its beauty. This seasonal ritual calls for all the earth to wrap itself in deep, inner growth.
All the leaves fall—joyfully swirled works of art along with bug-chewed tribulations full of holes. They fall alone and together in their own time without judgement or sentiment.
The leathery, wispy, crispy whole is swept by the elements until its dust finds its way back to the earth and nurtures the cycle of vibrance once again. Your eyes should widen in awe. Your mind should broaden to the wisdom in this natural ritual seeking balance. Are you making time to dance with them?
There are many dances of the autumnal season. All of them are worthy of dancing: from the awe-filled moments of beauty, to the yearning for the light through the longer nights. It’s time to feed our compassion so that we might ripple out empathy and understanding for ourselves, and in turn to others. In this spirit of reciprocity, we can learn to strike balance once again in our corner of the world.
It’s the season of being willing to step back inside to welcome our deepest thoughts, to nurture our emotions and reactions—feel them, then breathe them out again. Let in only those thoughts that serve you with love.
This autumn, as the leaves begin to fall, prepare your mind, body, and soul to welcome in the magic of the next season of your life. Get grounded, seek out all things cozy, and nourish your spirit.
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Grounding Yourself in Nature — A Walk Among the Trees
While summer beckons us to deconstruct the schedule and play, fall reminds us to slow down and reconnect. That may sound impossible as we find structure and build up hectic schedules once again, bulldozing our way around checking stuff off our lists and serving others. What if you paused this season to reconnect with your true self and served your inner compassion? How would that change how you show up for others?
I consider trees to be my kindred spirits. Yeah . . . I geek out on trees, and I’m OK with that. You see, being among the trees helps me feel calm and has this miraculous magic that brings me into the present moment with wild abandon, washing away all the dust from the day’s hurried bulldozing. I remember what it feels like to return to my own inner peace when I walk among the trees.
“Be like a tree. Stay grounded. Connect with your roots. Turn over a new leaf. Bend before you break. Enjoy your unique natural beauty. Keep growing.” —Joanne Raptis
For me, trees have a meditative quality that quietly grounds me when I connect with their slow-motion energy. I can offer up my energy to the trees in any form in which I create it. The trees never judge. They absorb that energy and help send it back to me renewed. What a gift of reciprocity!
I am always awed that once I’ve been among the trees, I emerge peaceful, content, and have energy that serves me and those in my world in a kinder, more compassionate way. Afterall, there’s only so much of me to go around without taking time to renew my energy.
My meditation is simple:
Each day I seek 5-10 minutes to walk among the trees or to sit near them. I quietly observe the trees, softening my gaze. Intentionally rooting my feet to the same earth, I breathe in deeply and exhale deeper until I feel my breath flowing freely. I find myself opening to the presence of the moment, and I welcome that quietness and smile in gratitude. When I’m ready, I find something interesting or beautiful to hold in my mind’s eye to return to this quietness later.
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Manifesting a Ritual of Peace—Learning to Be Big and Small
It’s in these quiet moments of meditation that I observe I can be both big and small—a concept by American Tibetan Buddhist Pema Chödrön. This form of meditation helps me find perspective, understanding, empathy, and compassion for myself and for the world around me. I am renewed again.
When casually observed, I see that a single tree can appear big and foremost in its environment from other trees around it. I may see that a singular tree provides shade for my home, or that it simply looks beautiful.
As I turn to reflect this observation, I perceive myself as big in this way: My personal thoughts and emotions are foremost over other’s thoughts, emotions, and reactions when I go about my day hurriedly working my way through my schedule. Seeing this singular point of view is meaningful to us as individual humans—We intrinsically know we are worthy simply because we exist in this world.
“ . . . you have to learn to be big and small at the same time.” —Pema Chödrön
On the other hand, an individual person and a tree are both much more than the provisions each independently provide for themselves.
In a tree’s life, it honors reciprocity with its surrounding world: It holds earth to the ground, shelters birds, squirrels, and insects. It feeds these same creatures as they, in turn, pollinate and carry the seeds of the tree. Trees provide clean air for us to breathe, wood for building, and sometimes fuel for heating our homes and cooking our food, paper for learning and artistic endeavors, and they bear fruit when the season is right.
As a tree offers its part in the natural reciprocity of the world around it, I reflect that I am also a small part of a greater network that serves those I love, along with my wider community. I am worthy because I am a compassionate, contributing part of a whole.
This deeper meditation helps me shift perspective and learn that I don’t have to bulldoze through life all the time. I am but a small part of the greater network—not always so big I cannot ask for help or respite, and yet I’m still so worthy. YOU are so worthy!
We are each unique individuals with many gifts and perspectives to offer one another. Each day we support each other in meaningful ways as we serve humanity and those we love. It is our strength as human beings, even in our grandest moments of unknowing. But sometimes we leave ourselves behind—forget to nurture our roots, which feed the leaves that dance back to the earth, and begin again, and again, and again. . .
Leaning into a sacred space for yourself to feel peaceful or to draw inspiration is an honorable act of reciprocity to your little corner of the world. It brings a balance of compassion, big and small, and ripples it out like a bird carrying the seed from the fruit of a tree for others to harvest the abundance that was given in love. In this ritual of seeking peace, that seed will be planted and sowed for seasons to come.
Are you shaking the tree this season? Where is your connection to nature strongest? What natural elements reflect renewed energy and compassion back to you? I encourage you to seek out your own sacred space in harmony with nature. Be soft with yourself, and breathe compassion into 5-10 minutes of your day. I wish you cozy moments full of joy and reflection, greater inner peace, more love, and abundant compassion.
“Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go.” —Unknown