The Singing Forest

The man walked deep into the forest for many days until he found a tree he thought might be the oldest. He planned to extract a sample using a core drill, to enable him to count its rings and date it, but the drill didn't work. For some days he tried to fix it, without success. He also had a saw and he looked at the tree; he thought about the long walk back to get another core drill, and about the importance of his research.

So he cut down the tree and dated it. It was 4,000years old  enough to have lived through most of known human history. When Moses was a baby, this tree was already 500 years old.

People have different relationships with nature. Some, like the man in this story, don't treat it with the respect it deserves, making it a sacrifice to the human ego. Others claim that plants have intelligence, soul and the capacity to communicate, and would no more cut down an ancient tree than cut down a grandmother.

Attitudes differ. Some people hear the forest sing and some don't.

One hundred and forty million years ago most of the northern hemisphere was covered in redwood and other trees. mankind made its appearance maybe 200,000 years ago and has, especially in the last two hundred years, remorselessly cut the forest down.

As early as 1905 American Congressman William Kent, and his wife Elizabeth  recognized the potential ecological danger, and bought 295 acres of redwood forest  in California, for $45,000. naming it 'Muir Woods' after the conservationist John Muir. He wrote to the Kents 'you have done me a great honor, and I am proud of it'.

We owe thanks to them all because today 'Muir Woods' is one of the few remaining enclaves  where you can stand amongst these magnificent trees  without hearing the sound  of a distant saw indictating that claer-out logging is heading your way.

It is a humbling experience to stand under ancient redwood trees . In Muir Woods I felt like a three year old in the presence of a vey large, old and wise men, in awe yet certain I would be completely protected . I did not want to leave their presence. Leaning on a Red Wood that extended too high into the sky for me to see its top, I felt the energy flooding into me, a cosmic river of refreshment for the soul. 

I heard the drone of a distant saw but knew in this protected forest island it must only be someone cutting deadwood and undergrowth, to clear the ground. Even so, it reminded me of other areas of the world  where international logging consortiums, are destroying huge areas of precious forest, and I felt an overwhelming emotion of sadness and guilt.

I apologised to the trees on behalf of human beings . Strange as it may seem  the trees spoke to me, directly, without voice, from their heart to mine. They conveyed to me their resignation, deep sadness and incomprehension as to why we should want to do such things.To someone living in a large city, a long way away from trees, having a conversation with a tree might seem an odd thing to do. But when you are actually out amongst them it seems the most natural thing in the world. I can fully understand why traditional native Americans, when planning to cut down a tree to make a totem pole or boat, asked permission, and gave thanks directly to the tree making a sacrifice.

My love of trees started when I lived in Switzerland and used to take my dog for a walk in the forest late at night. When the moon and stars illuminated our path we walked on and on, for my pleasure rather than the gog's convenience as the silence and the makesty of the forest filled me with feelings of reassurance and gratitude.

It was there, high in the mouintains that I first sensed the living connection between the night sky, the trees and the earth. Many years later, in ancient and cedar forests in North America, this impression was reinforced. Standing under a thick canopy of stars illuminating the the sky, I sensed that trees, particularly very tall , ancient trees, act in some way as planetary antennae.

The very tops of the trees seem to attract starlight and other cosmic energies, 'earthing' that energy as it travels down through the trunk, into the roots and the earth. I also wonder if the trees don't also transmit information back into the sky, sending vibrational energy, including human thought energy, out into the cosmos. I have no scientific proof, of course, but the thought remains: these giant trees  are recievers and transmitters jof energy, crucial even to cosmic balance  and human spiritual growth.

Anyone who studies trees knows that there is still a great deal to learn about them, especially in terms of energy and communication. Even in terms of mechanics and chemistry, areas we think we know so much about , new discoveries are being made  all the time. Scientists of British Columbia Ministry of Forests only recently found that certain  tree species  can share resources by using an underground  network of fungal threads .

Seedlings of the  Douglas fir, paper birch and western red cedar were subjected  to carbon dioxide containing  different carbo isotopes .

Two years later, 10 per cent of the carbon-type fed  to the birch was found in the fir. Both species share mycorrhizal fungi, which created the network of threads  between them, and the carbon travelled along this complete connection.

Because this same fungus dopes not connect with cedar, its particular experimental carbon composition  was unaffected. Meanwhile in Kenya, scientists have discovered that a well as sucking water up from the deep earth 'substancial ' amounts of water is transported downwards by the trees, to the dry subsurface .

These are pretty fundemental discoveries, which tell us a great deal about the working of trees we did not know before, in an area - the mechanical - we thought we aready understood. 

Reference: Fragrant Heavens/valerie Worwood

Let There Be Light

Walking through the woods, light filters through the leaves, creating a green haven of peace. The plants world is full of beautiful sights; there isn't a tree or flower that doesn't look good.

As each day dawn's pure sunlight sparkles in dew drops, shimmering on the grass, and on the leaves and flowers of the world. Walking through the woods, light filters through the leaves, creating a green haven of peace. The plant world is full of beautiful sights; there isn't a tree or flower that doesn't look good.

Although we think so sometimes, providing esthetic pleasure is not the most important thing about plants. By taking carbon dioxide and water from the air  and, with light, converting it into carbohydrates , plants are the ultimate production machine, purifying the air and providing food and medicine for humans and animals alike. Plants are both the lungs and larder of the earth. They are the conduit between the light of the heavens, and the dark of the earth, channelling energy from the skin into crystalline structures of mother earth, to be reflected throughout the planet. 

Plants are magnificent. The tallest tree in Redwood National Park, California, is the height of twenty-six London double-decker buses stacked on top of one another. These trees can live over 1'000 years, but  even one only 800 years old has stood through the coronations and reigns of thirty-five kings and queens of England. The size and longevity of these master pieces of creation is humbling, but to actually walk amongst the immense trees of an ancient forest is more humbling still.

The smallest seed is awesome in its capacity to create another plant, perfect in every detail , including its store of seeds for future generations. Plant seeds have been found in archaeological sites and germinated, thousands of years after they were dropped - testament to the monumental capacity of tiny seeds to hold life.

Most of us live not in a  living, breathing jungle but in a concrete one. We can redress this balance somewhat, by bringing the essence of plants  - essential oils - into our homes, but to understand these fully  we need to reacquaint ourselves with their heritage, their source - plants in their natural habitat.

Reference: Fragrant Heavens/ Valerie Worwood

Introduction

Some spiritual traditions pay reverence to the whole living environment; others turn inward, and use specific mental exercises to connect with the oneness of the universe. Whether we pray to God, whether we pay homage to Mother Earth, Father Sky or the spirit of the sage, whether we look to the stars within, spirituality is about making connections. We may take different routes, but the destination is the same.

Although spiritual practices differ greatly, there's no coincidence  in the fact that so many use fragrance. Every evening in India, the air is rich with the aroma of incense burning at home shrines. Smoke fragrant with the aroma of the smouldering resins, frankincense and myrrh, fills the air in Ethiopian Coptic and Orthodox Christian Churches. Muslins use lavish quantities of sweet-smelling rose water to impart fragrance to the mosques and other holy places.

In native America sweat lodges, for ritual purification and spiritual connection, the fragrant herbs of sage, cedar and sweet grass are put on hot rocks to release their aroma molecules into the humid atmosphere. Clouds of fragrant smoke rise from the handful of incense sticks, placed at Chinese Buddist shrines. In the Havdallah ceremony held in Jewish homes at the close of the Sabbath every Saturday night, blessings for the light and fragrance are recited over the candle and spice box.

Each dawn, Tibetan go up on the roof s of their houses and light stoves in which they burn bundles of Juniper - to force the sky door open . As plumes of smoke rise from the houses and fragrance fills the air, prayers can be heard. It's the essential oils in fragrant plant materials, the aroma molecules, that are released by these various practices - they are what gives incense its aroma, just as the essential oil in pine needles gives a pine forest its uplifting quality.

Essential oils exude from plants into their 'headspace', where we smell them when walking amongst nature, and humans have devised many methods to capture this essence of the plant, the molecules so many people have chosen to help them connect with and feel the divine.

Fragrance has been said to alert the gods to out presence, and act as a sign that the human mind is focused and receptive to spiritual guidance. In many cultures sweet-smelling aroma was, and still is associated with divinity - with gods, heavens, angels and saints all being attributed a delightful fragrance. By being oneself fragrant, or burning fragrant material, a link or bridge could be formed to the divine. In Legends of the Bible Louis Ginzberg tells us that the Tabernacle had two altars: one brass, and used for food offerings, corresponding to the body; and one gold, used for offering spices and sweet incense - 'for the soul takes delight in perfumes only'. 

Reference:/Fragrant heavens/V. A. Worwood