Why would we want to do this? Because it can help to quieten and clear the mind. It can also be a healing and spiritual experience. Just by connecting with the elements within and without, the experience can provide the grounding we need at that moment in time. Thus, easing any stress, anxiety and worries one might have. Being in a peaceful, calm, and quiet environment will also help you to tap into your intuition, by looking within, you may find your natural intuitive instinct looking out.

Easy Ways to Connect with Nature

For most of us living in cities or towns there is usually access to open spaces, parks, rivers, and sometimes royal woods. You might even be lucky enough to have your own garden. Some people like to make special pilgrimages to sacred places, forests, beaches, protected swathes of land and the mountains. Once there you might go on mindful walks or hikes, meditate in the open spaces or beside sacred monuments. Tune into the many varied colours you might come across at the different times of the year. Notice the wildlife and try to connect with it. You could also take your time to tend to your garden, cultivating those green fingers. Wherever you are, you might like to conduct personal full or new moon rituals outside.

Bring Nature Inside Your Home

If you live in a place where there is no easy access to the great outside, or lead a very busy life, consider bringing the outside inside with a collection of appropriate house plants.

Nature is the Visible Face of Spirit

It is probable that when we enter a forest which has been untouched by humans for a long period of time, we might possibly see only disorder and chaos. Matted undergrowth, trees clogging the space and interlaced upon one another. New life growing out of what seems like rotting, decaying waste. It might feel cold, formidable, and scary. Only if we could drop into the energy here, we might find the harmony, feel it as a sacred space, and realise that everything here is in its perfect place. If you can do this, then you can realize you are not separate from it but are and can be a conscious participant within it. It is in this way that nature helps us realign ourselves with the wholeness of life. Nature exists in a state of unconscious oneness with the whole.       You might attempt to do this wherever you find yourself in nature.

Spiritual Qualities of Nature

Symbiotic relationships are a special type of interaction between species. Sometimes beneficial, sometimes harmful, these relationships are essential to many organisms and ecosystems, and they provide a balance that can only be achieved by working together. This is called Mutualism: both partners’ benefit.

Humans breathe out carbon dioxide, trees breath it in, they breathe out oxygen, and humans breathe that in. So on and so forth... We are both linked to the ground which we come from and receive our nutrients. We both have spiritual links and therefore can interact to send and receive healing, knowledge, and energy. All parts of the physical collective world which include, the land, plants, animals, and humans are alive, interrelated and exist at varying vibrational rates. These states of matter exist in two forms, the physical as we see and interact with every day, and the invisible world of spirit.

Within this form, we humans have an etheric body surrounding the physical body acting as an energy form linking it to the emotional body, wherein our feelings are played out. Around that form comes the mental body where our thoughts exist, and gives access to our Higher Mental Soul Self, from then onwards the subtle spiritual bodies reach out, touching one another in a more energetic way, linking us all together with all that is; the Divine.

All these bodies/worlds/ interpenetrate each other much as gas, water and solids do in the physical world. The premise of how life exists is that within our own physical world we also have the worlds of the astral (emotional), mental and spiritual worlds interconnected, living, being and having their expression. The structure of life as we know it, including cell growth, structure and expression are all able to have direct influence from these subtler worlds. At this point it is important to note that each living thing therefore has access to higher life forms or energies that can be channelled through to it by various means. Thought, emotions, direct channelling, and touch.

Our own subtler bodies can become more refined and attuned to these specific energies, especially when we train ourselves in how to contact and use these levels of perception. How do we do this? By simply taking the time to recognise that these levels exist and tune into them often through meditation, dream-work, prayer, or direct links with the spiritual entities that exist in these worlds.

If we look at the many indigenous tribes who have existed upon this planet, they have usually had direct and constant intercourse with these other worlds and the entities within them. The modern tribes seem to be hanging on with their fingernails to their cultural ways. They have lived with the spirits in a marriage which suited both sides and enjoyed a life full of meaning; the shaman who would direct his tribe to water and food sources whilst nomadically moving round the vast expanses of land, the medicine men/women deep in the jungle/forests who interact with the plant life so as to have a perfectly natural medicine cabinet that never runs empty at their side, the healers who channel energy to help change the vibrational rate inside a person, animal and plant to help bring it back into what is called a natural energy state of body, mind and spirit. The farmers who worked with the spirit of the land to grow their crops in traditional and sometimes formidable circumstances.

When we are well and firing on all cylinders, we are power-full. When weak and dis-eased, we are power-less. By filling ourselves with healing energy, we once again can start our journey back to becoming full of power.

Tree Energy:  Trees act as a source for energy on many levels.

Physical: The peace, shelter, warmth, and security of walking, sitting, accessing it in nature, and the eating of its fruit and nuts. The using of it in our building of houses, boats, and machines and finally the warmth and cooking possibilities it provides as a raw resource.

Emotional: The fun we have whilst walking through a wood, climbing trees or calmness whilst warming ourselves at a tree’s base or by a small fire in a glade.

Mental: Calmness of mind when in the company of nature and trees in general.

Spiritual: We can access healing, divination, meditational, and magical communication with the spirit that inhabits the tree. It is possible to aid our spiritual development through interaction with nature.

Each individual tree, like all living things has an energy frequency/ vibrational note and an aura. The roots give it great grounding deep in the ground. The vibration is generally an energy of safety, security, and stability.

When interacting with a tree, realise that you are all these things too. Please remember to be respectful, so send it some loving energy back and always give your thanks. This will help to ensure a positive and growing relationship.

Physical Interactions with Trees

Trees have been around since we were born. We might have climbed them, hidden behind or within them and collected their fruit and nuts for games and to eat. It recently became fashionable for people to hug trees and is done for many different reasons culminating in many books being written about tree communication. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say.

There are however several methods to use when choosing to contact the spirit of the physical tree. Please remember that these living plants do have a spirit within them and that just like some humans, aren’t too keen to be hugged out of the blue, climbed upon, or shouted at. They are as diverse as you and me, which means that they will have access to variants of the energy associated to that tree. However, should you wish to respect it as a living sentient being, here is some guidance that can help you create a strong and harmonious bond between you both.

Try to be as open and respectful as you can. Before approaching them, let them know you are coming and what your intention is. Stop a good twenty feet away and through a prayer of introduction, let them know who you are and what you want from them. If you feel that you have been accepted, move on up and sit at the base of the trunk. Sit in its energy and take your time to feel it. It can manifest as tingling, hot, or cold spots of energy, you may get dizzy, feel totally relaxed or feel nothing. Sit in its energy so it can feel and tune into yours.

Remember this is a two-way scenario. Time is observed slightly differently by trees and if you wish to create a lasting relationship with one or more, make sure you visit regularly to develop a positive one. Once a relationship develops, it can be like meeting an old friend.

Should you wish for a physical part of the tree for your work, ask for a gift from the tree, or root about underneath it and see what you can find. Sometimes the tree will offer you gifts of its bark, twigs, fruit or flowers from its trunk and branches, please only take what you need.

Potential wands, divining rods as well as nuts and fruit can often be found at the base of trees after a strong wind has passed by. Ask and you shall receive. An offering of water, mead, honey, or a prayer will always be gratefully accepted.

Physical Tree Healing

When making spiritual communication with a tree, you may find that it is on a very subtle level. Let it be tender and understand that you may not be the one in charge of the situation so don’t fight for control. Trees are welcoming and once a relationship has developed, they are just as inquisitive of you, as you are of them. You may also find that they know all about you as we carry our life stories about in our auras which can be read and understood by those in the know.

Relax and let yourself sink and merge into communication. This might be visual, whereas you see the spirit of the tree appear in a way that suits you. I tend to see them in my mind’s eye as Druids, or feminine spirits (Dryads). I have been welcomed into the trunks of trees, to climb down some steps and sit with the spirit of the tree across a table, or just become as part of the tree itself and then commenced to chat about all sorts of things. Sometimes it is a fleeting thought, or brush of positive energy touching your hair or cheek. My favourite time was when my local oak blessed me on my very first visit by dripping some of its resin onto me. You do not have to ask anything from them but just enjoy their wonderful company.

Should you have some questions ready, try not to make them closed, as in, yes and no ones. Ask for example, ‘What are the benefits of....?’ ‘When would be a good time to...?’ ‘Please explain why these things happen to me?’ Remember that once you have asked your question, be open minded, open hearted and accept that these spirits are all loving and working on a higher plane. You may get direct revelation or be treated to a symbolic/ metaphoric picture show.

Should you request a healing, make sure that again you ask respectfully. If you get one, great. Relax and enjoy it. If not, remember that the time may not be right for them to undertake this healing and from a spiritual point of view, you might be experiencing dis-ease as a learning experience. We don’t always get what we want, we get what we deserve. Please do not challenge or threaten the tree or even get annoyed if you do not receive what you expect.

I have used trees for healing using the Ogam tree symbols, by channelling their energies by being attuned to the spirit of that tree. I have done this face to face with clients, as distant healing, and have even used tree energy to take out an entity attachment for a client over zoom!

Tree Parts

You might also like to try working with any tree parts you have managed to collect from your travels into the natural world. Once you have the physical part in your hands, you need to activate or tune in with the spirit of the tree which exists within it. Do not be fooled by thinking a piece of bark, twig, flower, or leaf holds no power. It does. Tune into the spirit of the tree through that axis mundi and its energy will come to you.

When asking for divine guidance, understand that spirit can communicate through many mediums including speech, thoughts, visions, feelings, tastes, smells, and touch. The answer to your questions may come later in the day when you hear it in the words of a song, within the writings of a book, or an advert on TV. Be open to however it comes your way and especially look out for synchronicities which is a good way of realising things are working for you.

Note of Caution

As I have said above, each physical tree will have varying amounts of the qualities attributed to that species. Yes, each tree has various life force energy qualities associated with it. Some have more power than others, some may not even want to help you – it’s not a written law that all nature should bow down to man.

Ogam Online Tree Healing Course Starting in April 2024

X3, 10-weekly, 2-hour session.

Friday Nights, 7.00-9.00pm

Check details out on Website below.

www.cambridgecoreshamanism.com

@cambridgecoreshamanism

Article written by Thomas Marty © February 2024

Bibliography

A New Earth by Ekhart Tolle

The Beginners Book of Ogam Tree Healing by Thomas Marty