Trees Heal

By Barbara Janelle M.A.

Previously Unpublished

September, 1993

An amazing experience came during the first session of my Level 2 TT class last week. Instead of doing the usual meditation and work in pairs, I sent people outdoors to learn about the use of energy from trees. The instructions were for each one to find a tree that called, go to it and invite its work. The steps are:

1) Sense the energetic difference as you walk toward the tree.

2) Then stand facing the tree and place both hands on the trunk. Hold that position until the tree tells you to move.

3) Then turn and stand with your spine in contact with the tree. Hold that position until the tree tells you move.

One woman had come to class with a pain in her neck and shoulders that had hung on during the day. When the tree finished with her, the pain was completely gone; her face was brighter and she was very relaxed. Another, unable to see her chiropractor for a few weeks, described the tree doing an adjustment on her neck with a gentle crack. She too looked very different afterwards. Another felt a major change in her chest–a clearing of congestion. Everyone felt very deeply grounded.

And I had been coping with a digestive upset for several days that left me with terrible acid indigestion after I ate anything. As I stood against the tree, I felt a very quick rise in energy through my feet up into my stomach, a sudden twisting action there and then a sense of draining down through the legs into the ground. It was all over in less than two minutes. I waited a while and then ate something and lo and behold, no indigestion. I’ve continued to add different foods over the past several days, and I feel fine! Wow!

Note:

Communication with animals during TT treatments quickly led to communication with trees and plants, rocks, rivers and lakes and to the Earth herself. Everything has consciousness. Everything has knowing. TT leads to a different understanding of the world.

Over the years, I have combined exercises learned from Merlin Homer (energetic abilities of trees and plants) and Linda Tellington-Jones (communication with trees) with my own experiences. Now, I teach the following:

a) Notice what you feel as you move toward and away from a mature tree.

b) Scan the ground with your hands as you move toward and away from a mature tree.

c) Scan the trunk of the tree–notice how the north and south sides feel, and the field over scars and healthy bark.

d) Ask the tree to scan you–notice how this feels.

e) Put your back against the tree and ask the tree to work on you. Trees are very powerful and effective energy workers. How do you know when this is finished?

f) Ask the tree a question and pay attention to the thoughts, images, sounds, etc. that come into your mind. The question may be as simple as, “Tell me something I need to know.”

g) Thank the tree for the experience.

This can be done with other kinds of vegetation too.

In Living the Therapeutic Touch, Dolores Krieger describes an experience of communicating with a tree which helped her to find a lost dog. The Findhorn Garden material and Machaelle Small Wright’s books offer additional insights into communicating with plants, as do J. Allen Boone’s Kinship With All Life, Penelope Smith’s Animal Talk and Animals..Our Return to Wholeness, and Michael Roads’ Talking With Nature and Journey Into Nature and Arthur Meyers’ Communicating with Animals. –BJ 2/99

Krieger, Dolores. Living the Therapeutic Touch: Healing as a Lifestyle. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1987. out of print

The Findhorn Community. The Findhorn Garden. London: Perennial Library/Harper & Row, 1975.

Wright, Machaelle Small. Perelandra Garden Workbook Second Edition. Jeffersonton, VA: Perelandra, 1993.

Boone, J. Allen. Kinship With All Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1954.

Smith, Penelope. Animal Talk. Point Reyes, CA: Pegasus Publications, 1989.

Smith, Penelope. Animals..Our Return to Wholeness. Point Reyes, CA: Pegasus Publications, 1993.

Roads, Michael J. Talking with Nature. Tiburon, CA: H.J. Kramer, 1985.

Myers, Arthur. Communicating With Animals. Lincolnwood, IL: Contemporary Books, 1997.