As some of you may already know, I take walks almost everyday, sometimes twice or more... some days I miss my walks all together but make up for it asap. There are a few reasons that I like to walk, one is the obvious reason - for my health and fitness; another reason is to clear my energy when I've had a lot going on and I find myself stressed or sad... a good walk usually helps me think things through, come up with solutions to things and game plan my next move... sometimes I work past any pains I may feel whether it's a broken heart over sad things or mean people who in their confusion say or do hurtful things, a good long walk helps me vent to myself and usually within about ten minutes to move past it. I also like to spend at least an hour or more every so often and walk around picking up trash (with gloves on!) But the main reason I like to walk is to connect with our beautiful planet Earth. There may be many other reasons that get me out the door but once outside I quickly begin to look past all of my woes and as I look around I begin to realize all of the other entities we share this planet with that many of us may take for granted or overlook.
Before I get into that, I want to touch on something that I think maybe not everyone is aware of but as spiritual beings it's rather important. Did you know that the Earth has this amazing ability known as Transmutation? As an example of what transmutation is, lets take a quick look at composting. We put a bunch of things that were once "living" such as paper, plant and tree clippings, fruit peels or even fruits themselves, dog turds, ashes, you name it, anything we don't use anymore that can be broken down and "recycled." Our wonderful Earth will take all that junk and disgusting stuff and over time, with a little help from some water (whether it's rain or sprinklers or just a garden hose) with or without our "turning" it, the Earth will eventually transmute it into fertile, healthy soil in which plants, trees, bulbs, etc. can thrive in. It turns our junk into something that is once again not only usable but healthy and renewed.
Now lets take a step out of our physical world of dirt and junk and step into the spiritual... did you know that the Earth can also help take away our pain, our suffering, our regret, anger, frustration, grudges and more and help "cleanse" us so that we can become renewed and thrive again too? It can! What I like to do when I'm on my walks sometimes is "send" these and more negative things back into the Earth to be recycled and transmuted and turned into what the Earth and it's inhabitants can use, love and healing energy. I guess it's kind of a mindful meditation that I do when I do this; I state my intentions, naming and picturing the things I no longer want or need going down through my body, traveling out of my feet and into the Earth. I let the Earth know that I would like it to take these things away from me so that they can be transmuted into good and positive things in which to help our environment, similar to the compost pile. When I'm done with my mindful meditation, I thank the Earth and find myself feeling lighter, less stressed and less weighed down by all this unnecessary baggage that doesn't serve me.
Now another thing I want to touch base on are the trees in which we rely on so much for their ability to transmute the pollution that we fill the air with. The trees are vital to our survival yet depending on where they're located, they also rely on us to help them live and thrive. Most people don't realize or even notice the trees "up close" on a normal basis or maybe even at all other than when they zoom past them on the road some may "see" them but not realize what's happening "to" them, unless you make it a point to take special notice as you happen to walk by them. What I'm referring to is the actual health of the trees... maybe you'll see their leaves may look a little "crispy" as if they would crumble to the touch, yet down the street a little ways away you may see the same type of tree and it's leaves are bright green and appear to be thriving. So that rules out the fact that winter is ending and it's cold outside... if the same type of tree is thriving and healthy just a block or so away from the same type of tree that seems crunchy or crispy, then obviously something is wrong. More than likely the crispy tree isn't getting enough water to help hydrate it. If it's on a busy street and lots of cars are driving by, not only is it dying of thirst but it's also probably having a hard time breathing and doing it's job of transmuting the pollution; instead of transmuting, because it's dying of thirst now it's also struggling to breathe.
Maybe you're thinking "eh, it's just a tree" but maybe, you don't realize that every tree has an intense, complex internal structure that causes it to feel pain, communicate with other trees, it feels sadness, it feels suffering, it feels happiness and more. There have been many countless scientific studies done on trees and plants and scientists are becoming more and more aware that these "things" we call trees and take for granted, are living, breathing creatures... I would even dare to say they're like an animal - they feel, they get their feelings hurt, they cry, they feel joy and they feel love... they feel when someone is sending them "hate" and they feel overjoyed when someone shows them kindness and love. If you find this hard to believe, just do a little research and you'll see what I say is true.
Now, this blog isn't necessarily about just trees but since I'm on the subject of trees, I'd like to take this moment to educate you just a little further. Did you know that HOW and how much we cut a tree's branches have huge impacts on the trees? Lets take for example a branch that someone thinks is just too long, it's hanging into the street and the person (or city) doesn't want to be sued for damage if a big truck gets damaged from that big ol' branch sticking out... so what do the "landscapers or gardeners" do? They cut the branch... in HALF, leaving half the branch, cut back far enough that it's not hanging in the street. They think they've done their job and "no harm, no foul" but let me ask you this if someone cut off your arm at the elbow, do you think you could heal from that? Of course not, we'd have to rush you to the hospital for a seriously emergency surgery and stitching... maybe even amputating the remaining arm. I know that may sound a bit extreme, but imagine if you were that tree and sure you have this amazing ability to heal yourself, most of the time, but when someone cuts a limb in half there is no healing from that. The only way to heal from that is to have the remaining portion of the branch completely cut off. It sounds painful, no matter which way we look at it, but the trees are able to heal from an entire branch being removed a lot easier than it can heal the end of a branch.
There's another few key things that I'll try to touch on quickly so as not to take too much time on "cuts". There are a few cuts that are just so wrong to do to a tree because again, it can't heal these types of wounds. They are: stub cuts where a few inches of a branch are left, did the person cutting get too scared to cut a little closer or are they just inexperienced and can't maneuver their equipment properly? Flush cuts - they cut the branch off so close to the tree the tree has a hard time recuperating from that as well. Then there's the cuts where the person does a half ass (sorry for the language but we've all heard worse!) job and "rips" long strips of bark instead of finishing the cut they started in the first place... did they just get too lazy to cut it properly and decided to rip off the remainder? Or did they not go "upwards" first and then come from the top to properly finish the cut? Either way, these types of cuts and rips are just as deadly to a tree than anything inhumane one can do to a tree. What happens is the tree can't heal these and when they try, it takes so much of its energy to try and heal say the flush cut or rips, that they can't properly heal other parts of itself that were cut... which in turn causes the tree to stress and "cry out" to the other trees around it, the same as if a child falls down and hurts itself to the point that it's screaming for their parent, they know they probably can't help them but they need their love and support. When the tree sends out this distress signal the trees aren't the only ones who hear it... bugs hear it and to them it's like a dinner bell being rang and they head on over for supper. The bugs then move into the tree and stay until they've completely depleted and damaged this poor tree beyond repair. It may take about a year or a little less, but either way that poor tree will whither up and die and will have to be removed... a once healthy, happy tree who was doing it's job of cleaning our air and providing homes to birds and other beautiful creatures now has become a sad, abused, mistreated part of our Earth that we took for granted and basically beat up and fed to the wolves. (When we think about it, humans sound pretty damn mean and irresponsible!) Not only that, lets say that someone actually does trim the tree properly so that the tree can heal itself... did you know that if we cut more than 20% of the tree itself that also causes the tree to suffer and send out distress signals, because it's just too much for the tree to heal at once. It's sad really if you think about it... if you live near me don't be surprised if you see me and one of my best friends on a walk, hugging tree after tree! (How sad it must be that the majority of the time that a tree is even touched is when someone is cutting them! Knowing that trees feel love, I bet they really like getting hugs once in a while!) The really cool thing about hugging a tree is that if you pay attention to the energy of the tree, you can actually feel the tree sending love back to you... or when it's in pain, if you're sensitive to energies you can feel that it's hurting, thirsty or otherwise.
It doesn't take much to become educated on how to properly trim a tree... of course we should leave it to the professional tree experts who are Certified Arborists but instead many are trusting the "gardener or landscaper" because they SAY they know how to trim a tree... usually they're the ones doing all this damage because they didn't take the time to become educated and learn proper tree care / trimming. They think that because they wield these weapons (giant chain saws) or tools if you will, that they can trim our trees. They feel insulted when we confront them and say things like "I'm just doing my job" and "of course I know what I'm doing" when in reality, they don't. Then there's also the "tree" companies that claim to have a Certified Arborist doing the work, but really what they're saying is they have one on staff and they're not the ones cutting the trees.
It's really sad when you think about it, here we have these beautiful trees working hard to help us, yet how do repay them? By cutting corners and hiring ill-educated inexpensive "landscapers" who don't know Jack about trimming a tree. Don't even get me started on the trees they "recommend" need to be cut down... I've seen first hand perfectly healthy trees that landscapers say "they need to go immediately because they're doing such and such damage or they're going to 'fall' over!" They freak out home owners associations and because those people don't do their research, they say "ok" and find a way to fit into the budget. In reality, take for example the Mesquite tree... they have this amazing ability when planted on a slight hill or slope (or when they're young and because of settling with being watered on some hill) they happen to grow a bit crooked... what's awesome is that the Mesquite will actually balance itself out, growing in the opposite direction of the slope so that it distributes it's weight properly so that it has a perfect balance to keep itself thriving and healthy. These ill-educated landscapers will say "that tree is going to fall!" because to the human eye, it appears to lean too much for their liking... to them I say "do some research and get a clue!" In my opinion, trees are brilliant and have this amazing ability to thrive and heal, if we let them.
I know we're all just trying to do what we have to do to survive in this crazy, mixed up world... we're all just looking to succeed, survive a recession and maybe even come out stronger. But there are other things that are vital to not only our future but the future generations to come.
People wonder why there's such a thing as Global Warming or unusual weather conditions, to those who wonder what is going on I have this to say: The world, our beautiful planet Earth is screaming for us to wake up! She is trying to get our attention... for far too long we have been selfish, thinking we're the most important creatures here and that everything should adhere to our desires... the Earth included. She is telling us in no uncertainty, we've gone too far.
We have crossed the line with our materialistic, selfish and sinful ways; we have been abusing her and all of nature far too much and it must stop. Our oceans and fish are dying constantly because there are toxic oil spills that those responsible have given up on trying to stop, they don't know how so they're really not even trying anymore. There's giant sea creatures that are baffling mankind as to what they are, that are turning up on our beaches dead and mutilated looking... people are assuming they know what they are but that's beside the point. We all know that the ocean is so deep it's almost as vast as outer space itself, mankind has not even developed the technology to go that deep and down deep are a multitude of sea creatures we've never seen or heard of because that's where they live, so far away we don't know they exist. Our fish is becoming toxic to mankind because of these oil spills (gushers I'd say!) that the media doesn't even talk about because quite frankly, they either don't care or maybe they're not allowed to speak of. Either way, it's happening... if something isn't done immediately to stop the spills, our oceans may never recover. (Why do you think there was a time not long ago where the water was deemed toxic in some parts of the US because people were getting sick and even dying?)
Our beautiful, wonderful Earth has a way of cleaning up after us, but we're damaging her at such an alarming rate that she can't keep up with us anymore, or maybe she's just getting tired of the abuse and is trying to say "enough already!" It's our turn to step up and accept responsibility for what we're doing and make amends... if we take care of the Earth and the other occupants, then they can continue doing what they do best and help us in return. It reminds me of the symbol for recycling... but instead it's kind of like "you scratch my back and in return I'll scratch yours, and we can just keep it going..." Pay it forward... we've been on the receiving end long enough, it's time we all do our part.
Love & Light
Shelle
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