“As we breathe out what trees breathe in,
And the trees breathe out what we breathe in,
So we breathe each other into life.”
Marcia Prager, The Path of Blessing
I have a friend, as many dendrophiles do whom most would call a tree. I call her Sylvie. Sylvie is a white pine and stands tall amid a stand of white pines and other species in Kinns Woods. It’s a town forest, well maintained and used by many. This is a wild place in a suburban setting, a habitat for a multitude of plant and animal species. It is one of my favorite wild haunts where I can do sit spot practice, meditate, and nurture my love for all my fellow kin at Kinns woods.
At the base of Sylvie’s trunk, I sit and follow down Marcia Prager’s path of blessing. Surrounded by pine needles, ferns, and Virginia Creepers I breathe in synch with Sylvie, a co-meditation holding sacred space and silence with each other. It is my affirmation that this process is truly breathing one another into life and so much more. We may be separate species but together we share the breath of life that links us to a myriad of other species which forms the great connecting web uniting us all.
There is grace in this exchange, no special thought is required beyond intention, no expectation is involved, or reward sought. We are just together as well as for each other in a natural respiratory act of reciprocity. It is a gift exchange of life and love. I never leave without offering “thanks” for the time with this wild friend who nurtures my wild soul. A sprinkling of organic tobacco accompanies this as a more tangible expression to mark the sacredness of this shared experience.
My sylvan friend teaches me in the most organic and fundamental way that I am connected to all the natural world and together we support life and aid one another in our mutual flourishing. We are not separate. We are truly interdependent. To live with this in mind, each human act of intention can strengthen the web or when careless harm is done will weaken the web and leave gaps. “Finding our place in the family of things,” as Mary Oliver would bid us, will lead us to building cross-species relationships with reciprocity and gratitude that are the natural results of deep friendship and communion.
Mark