The Sacred Grove

The Sacred Grove

We can’t help turning into each other

at our common center. Often mistaken,

we grow like a single tree, reaching

for light and the touch of rain, thinking

this is what makes us separate, unique.

Only to find later that, like the aspens,

we share the very same root system—

only to learn that we were built to pass

nutrients back and forth to those who

need them the most. Kindness moves

through us like sap, like blood, until

our limbs rub up against each other,

and we remember: We are not one,

but part of a sacred grove.



I paused on the path back to my cabin that day, feeling like someone was following me in the empty woods. Was it a stranger, the bear I’d glimpsed a few times feeding on blackberries? When I looked over, I saw only the flashing, trembling leaves of aspens, the silence and privacy of those trees calling me closer. And stepping among them, I felt the same intimacy I sensed before, as if standing in the rustling presence not of many living things—but a single conscious being. I’d been staying for the summer at an off-the-grid Buddhist monastery called Arrow River, not far from Thunder Bay in Canada. After so many hours of solitude and meditation, I must have been more attuned than usual to the world around me, because I seemed to feel the pulse and presence of everything—spiders, ants, even the orange and yellow flowers of hawkweed that closed up each evening. I was not surprised to find out later that quaking aspens share the same vast root system. In fact, one tree called Pando (Latin for “I spread”), found in the Fishlake National Forest of central Utah, weighs in at a staggering 13 million pounds, consisting of 40,000 individual trees, and spanning over 106 acres. Scientists surmise it is the largest living organism on Earth, dating back all the way to the end of the last Ice Age.


That afternoon I stood inside what I can only call a sacred grove, and I felt like a guest in that open-air cathedral. I knew I had entered a place that moves at its own soulful pace, that breathes outside of clock-time. We can sense this same timeless quality in any forest, even in our own backyard, when we go quiet enough to let the human self fall away. Then we see the mistake in our thinking all along, believing that the point of life is only our own individual well-being. While we exist as unique expressions that must be honored, we come to see that our true purpose is maintaining an undeniable connection with each other. We were built, like aspens and other trees, to pass messages back and forth, to share nutrients when we have an excess with those who may be suffering, who may be doing without. Paradoxically, we become more ourselves when we find our common root with each other, allowing surface differences to fall away. Like sap, like blood, kindness and compassion move freely through us. We recall this each time our limbs rub up against one another, each time we reach toward solid ground for the wisdom we need. We access this common center by going still, even for just a few minutes, and entering a different world that lives inside this world we think we know so well. When we dare not to know for a little while and become more curious, it is then that the path opens into our own sacred grove, where we sense the undeniable aliveness of everything.


Invitation for Writing & Reflection: You might borrow some version of my phrase, “We can’t help turning into each other,” and explore the many ways we all share a common root and center. How are we alike as humans, and what brings us together even at a time of seemingly deep division?


If you enjoy these free weekly emails, please consider making a one-time donation here, or become a member and support this offering on a monthly basis below.

This coming Wednesday at 1pm ET/10am PT, the wonderful poet Elise Powers will join me as the June guest for my Monthly Pause Writing Community on Zoom. You can subscribe to join us, and cancel at anytime. Your subscription also unlocks access to our archive of interviews with amazing poets from the past 2 years.

https://www.themonthlypause.com/

_{Photo credit: Photo by Steph Wilson on Unsplash}