In that 1st Annual Canadian Invitational Healers’ Workshop in Ontario, Dora said that she encouraged even the most ill of patients to go outdoors each day because this brought about a major energy exchange in the field. Also being near water or trees was important because they stored prana and people could benefit from this. Big healthy trees supported the order in the human energy field: another boost to health. I knew that I felt good in the presence of trees and water and this helped to explain why that was true.

Around that same time, I took many workshops that helped me develop ideas and images around being a tree, and eventually I incorporated many of these experiences in my own teaching:

a) Emmagene Borden, one of the first TT teachers in Ontario, led a powerful meditation on being a tree: “Ask the spirit of the tree if you can come inside…feel your roots grow deep, your trunk strong and your arms extending up and out into branches – branches that reach to the sky.” As a tree, I felt myself stretched between Earth and Sky and with this came feelings of strength and physical integration, and a sense of lengthening that is similar to the result of a good Feldenkrais workout.

Emmagene also included the idea of a tree as a pump drawing energy from the Sky through the trunk into the Earth and from the Earth up to the Sky. This image of tree as energy gatherer and transferal system was very useful and powerful for me, and one that I eventually took into my own teaching.

b) In the Tellington Jones Equine Awareness Method trainings that I attended, we explored the feeling of groundedness and emotional and physical balance with exercises that involved visualizing ourselves as trees with deep and wide roots. We did variations on Tai Chi exercises to learn how rootedness enabled us to stay balanced and at ease even though partners tried to unbalance us.

c) Later in TT, I taught a similar exercise in which I related balance to awareness and emotional state (1):

A. Working in pairs, one person takes a minute to worry about something in their lives. The person signals the partner when deeply worried, and the partner pushes the person’s shoulder.

B. Then the person takes a minute to visualize being a tree with deep and wide roots. When that feeling is in place, the partner is signalled and again pushes the person’s shoulder. The difference in stability and balance is quite noticeable in these two states.

d) Eventually I taught a centering exercise that combined ideas from Emmagene’s visualization and my own experiences: imagine yourself as a tree with long and wide roots reaching into the Earth drawing energy up into your trunk. As a tree, your branches reach for the Sky and gather energy from the sun and air to support your well-being. Stretched between Earth and sky, you are grounded, balanced and stable.

e) As a simple and very effective centering and grounding exercise, I invite people to breathe in through their upper branches and out through their feet and roots.

In 1991, Merlin Homer gave a half-day workshop to my students in which she introduced an exercise that changed my awareness for all time. The exercise directions are:

a) energetically scan the trunk of a tree that you can reach easily
b) then, ask the tree to scan you.

The experience of being scanned by a tree is remarkable. For some the scan is internal, for others it is outward from the heart, while for others it may involve both sides as the tree instructs the person to “turn around.” Almost everyone who has tried this exercise has been aware of the tree scanning. For me, it was an early experience in receiving direction/communication from a tree and that was life-shifting! Merlin encouraged me to try this same exercise with grass and flowers and bushes.

With my growing awareness of the importance of grounding in the TT treatment (2), I was fascinated by how powerfully this proceeded when a treatment was done under a large tree. During such treatments, I began talking with the trees and asking for assistance. The assistance came not only with changes in the receiver’s field (deep grounding and increased strength and integration in the field), but in increased centeredness in me. I found that trees were powerful partners in the TT treatment! No wonder Dora like to work outdoors under trees so much.

In TT treatments, I started to partner with other kinds of plants as well, asking for their assistance in drawing off congestion in the field. A bush, a flower and even a houseplant will actually move and reach toward the site of congestion, and I stand back and watch the field change. It is always amazing to do a TT treatment in the vicinity of live plants.

To partner in the TT treatment with trees and plants is to walk into a profound sense of peace and great wisdom. Communication comes not only with changes in the receiver’s field and in my own centering, but also in awareness and insight. For many years now, I have gone to trees for help whenever a difficult situation arises and I have always received strength and insight from them.

In my TT Levels 2 & 3 and Advanced courses I teach about the wholeness of life as demonstrated by working with trees: Trees are very wise and are among the most profound healers on the planet. The following exercise offers some experience in working with trees.

Many who have tried this have reported very rapid pain relief. I recommend that migraine sufferers go and stand or sit with their backs against a large healthy tree either at the first sign of a headache or in mid-course. I know of nothing that will clear it faster than work from a tree. And for insight into self and life, trees offer tremendous wisdom.

The other day, I sat in my garden and thought about how much I own my teachers: Dora Kunz, Dolores Krieger, Merlin Homer, Emmagene Borden, Linda Tellington-Jones, Penelope Smith, Chloe, Magic Bailey, Houdini, Sam, the Sari horses, Ruskey, the horsechestnut tree in our yard in London, ON, the olive tree in my garden here, the redwoods in the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, and so many more who have led me into a greater understanding of the unity of all life. I am so very grateful to them all.