Author Archives: Catherine Audette

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I have been musing on a topic that I would like to pursue here.  I was thinking about the gift of life; it is a gift which the trees offer to us unconditionally. They offer the gift of the oxygen we breath, the wood on which we rely, and the gift of presence. Their presence alone is a gift to any community, regardless of the environment.

It is not these gifts alone that have been the topic of my imaginations. There are so many but the following have been the ones on which I have been musing:

Trees offer us Beauty, a sense of company, the comfort of a witness, proof of the ever-abiding power of the life-force that will grow no matter what the circumstances (one can find a tree growing out of stone), stillness of being in the busy-ness of life, sturdiness in a storm, a reminder to choose flexibility when necessary, and a sense, that despite what we do, think, feel, we have in our midst a constant, loving presence.

It is their love that is what I am focusing on particularly today.  I notice that after a walk in the forest, I feel aligned, once more, in my central truth, that we are love. That in our core, in our highest truth, we are all love.  It is their deep knowing of this very truth that is reflected back to me when I visit the woods.

Daily life and stressful interactions tend to shake our faith and trust in ourselves, and in our truths.  Walking among the trees reminds me of mine. In their presence, I can root deeply in the knowing of my core.  In their loving presence, I am reminded of the love that surrounds me; I can say, "I am Loved."  And those words offer such comfort.

Now, when interactions threaten to overwhelm me, I repeat, "I am loved," over and over. Soon, I find I am calm.  It is a little like what I have heard of the monk Thich Nhat Hanh who with an in-breath says "I am," and on the out-breath, "Peace."

It comes to mind to say, that to lay in the arms of the trunk of a tree is to lie in abiding love that never moves, nor fails to offer support. I bless the trees for reminding me of the support that surrounds me, for reminding me to who I am and of my truth; they remind me that I Am my highest self, when I am rooted in the Love that I am.

When we, like trees, let the Love that we are flow, we begin to transform the structures of our world.

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This prayer came from the bronze-leaved trees of the hills a day before shedding the rest of their leaves. It is a prayer offered to all trees.  Before the great white covering of the land arrives:

Thank you for teaching, in your living, of vulnerability and

Stripping ourselves bare for all to see

In anticipation of great change

And hopes of, as of yet, unimaginable regrowth.

Once more transforming the air, water, sun and earth to form.

 

I am touched by the trees' vulnerability, pride and honesty standing in their shapes.  Those of us who live in the north invariably have a moment in the year when we realize that we love this time of year when one can see the shapes of the trees outlined in the sky.  Thinking about the losing of the leaves, the color, the music they make, the companionship and the covering seems much harder than the reality of it.  Once they have gracefully, joyfully, shall I add gleefully, fallen, it is a gift to see the naked tree in its raw authenticity.

Now, is a pause, a moment between, a moment for which I am grateful.  We rest, we sense, we listen and hear, knowing that change on many levels is upon us.  It is the pause before speaking, the pause before action, the pause before knowing, the pause before transformation.  Soon the winter months of the northern country will call for a different voyage.

I wish you all a moment to notice and enjoy this pause.

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The beauty continues, in the Northeast in golds, yellows and oranges and the range of hues in between. I  have collected leaves and more leaves and again more...

Yesterday a cloudburst opened with winds that pulled, and tossed the leaves in all manner of patterns in the sky.  The trees released yet more beauty.  It is amazing that there are any leaves left on the trees at all.

I was driving on a windswept road and as I came down the hill a line of maples and oaks greeted me with bold colors, still displaying their joy and light.  I felt an unconscious reminder of the light ahead of the proverbial tunnel.  The trail of beauty before us leads us forward one step at a time, to, we find, more beauty.

After a sunset with the sky ablaze in pinks and reds, we turn a corner of the road and see more beauty in a stand of trees gifting us with yet more.  Still aglow with a light like fire.

The trees capture the light and reflect it to us, even when we may not feel it in ourselves on the Autumn days.

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 "Behind the subtle breezes that whisper through the treetops, fine and delicate energies pulse into your world from the spirit world, from an energy level not visible to your senses but as tangible as all you touch and hear. You detect these energies, taste them, feel them. They come pulsing out of the early morning air above the trees, gliding swiftly past you, lifting tiny hairs on the surface of your skin....You can not see them, but you sense them and know they are there."

   "If there were words put to these subtle conversations of nature, what message would they convey, these designs and patterns, sliding quietly into your world from a realm beyond? You watch and listen, blending with what comes your way.  Somewhere in these currents, there Is meaning for you." Ken Carey

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The most obvious impulse now in the forest is the shifting from End of Summer to Autumn. The patterns of light, design and energy shift the season, at first imperceptibly, and at last quite clearly, with changing colors in the trees, decreasing intensity of sunlight, and increasing of the colder winds blowing from the North.  I embrace the messages within this change and listen, watch and feel to hear what its meaning is for me.

I live in a country that is turning gold and red of an indescribable beauty.  I declare that there exists, this Autumn, all the colors in the light spectrum in the falling leaves. There are reds so deep and bold surely they must contain purple and blue. Yellows so alive they levitate off the ground as seen in the picture heading the quote above. One path that I took through the woods was full of yellows and reds so vibrant that I felt almost unrooted.

For sure, color, which is light, surrounds us and enriches us; color and light, forms of vibration, transmit energy as one walks the forest paths.  This increase in vibration is one of the many gifts the trees offer this glorious Fall. The gift of color is a living celebration of life. The light enfolds us from above in the tree tops, from below on the forest floor, and at times as a shower of glittering gold confetti when the leaves glide and tumble to the earth.

My friend Lynn remembers a Pecan tree telling her that "when the wind blows, the leaves surrender and dance."  Whether that dance is in the tree tops, or in the cascading colors twirling through the air, does anything describe the beauty of Autumn more eloquently? The trees are surrendering to the beautiful inspiration of the energy of the wind and dancing in release.

And so do we dance, as we listen to the wind of our soul, moving each to take the path to our own heart, where we have all the information we need.  Listening to the impulse of the energies within the day, the wind, and the sun, we are being given that information we need to take our very next step, We are blown gently, or not so gently, to walk toward that which brings us joy and laughter; even if the steps are unfamiliar. Trust that the map in your heart is sure.

Following unfamiliar steps requires a willingness to let go of cherished routines, expectations, thought patterns, or concepts. Those are the known paths and patterns. What the now asks is for us to find the new patterns and possibilities.  When we let go of the outdated leaves of the summer we dance freely in the wind of the present.  In releasing the legacies of the past we can celebrate for joy like the trees.  

The trees are dancing in celebration as they flow with the energy behind the wind.  And when we allow for the beauty of the now to move us, so do we.

 

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The winds of change blow in with the Northeast wind today.  I feel the excitement of change, and of opportunity.  This moment comes to me as the ethereal changeover from summer to autumn brings swirling leaves, soaring raptors, and new Autumn smells on the wind.  I want to be out in this energy and see where it blows me.

I feel a sense of momentousness in the elder trees as I walk in the woods these days.  There is much they would share.  They have a message for us.  

To that end, I will share here a message that was given to me from a friend.  It was a spontaneous vision that came to her.  I respect her work and will pass on her words.  When she connected to this vision, she connected to what she refers to as "Cosmic Great Beings."

There are energies channeling through the Great Beings Heart into our dimension that are a powerful force of energy that is being received by every Great Tree Being on the planet.  This light energy feeds them sustenance and gives keys or codes for drawing in more energy.  This energy aids them in their work in their specific bioregion and plane.

We can connect to this light energy and field by connecting to our hearts.  When we connect to our hearts, we will find that each Great Tree Being is tuned into this field as well. We are connected to each of them through the unified field.  Here, we are of service.  Here, we become aware of the oneness of human existence, Oneness with all of the planet.

And to bring the knowledge of Oneness to human existence is a great purpose of our co-creation with the Great Tree Beings; another purpose is to aid in human comprehension of the power of the forces of creation; and how the knowledge of Oneness activates energy in our own fields. This energy increases our ability to generate abundance with the elemental realm for the greening of the planet.

(I get the sense in listening to her say this that our difficulty in comprehending, until now, our connection and our oneness with all of life has interfered with our ability to connect to, comprehend and appreciate the power of Creation within and without.)

We who read this blog, or who find in their hearts a calling to listen to the whispers of the earth are invited to consciously and with intention join the Great Beings efforts for life-giving balance, join them to amplify and accelerate the energies that restore the resonance of the various bio-fields of the regions of the earth. This intentional focus can be extended to the life of the oceans, great bodies of lakes.

I share this message with gratitude.  I am grateful for the gift of the message, the gift of the unified field to which we all can connect in our hearts; I am grateful for all of you who contribute with your vision of a unified and vibrant planet. This gift extends to all far more than we yet comprehend.

Blessings

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I had the chance to visit the outskirts of Philadelphia at the end of August. I did not anticipate the collective and individual grandeur of the ancient trees there.  The city has history and the trees remember.  I also did not know that there was a well maintained arboretum.  When looking for places to visit, the first thing that JUMPED off the page to my eyes were the words "Morris Arboretum." So I listened to the nudge and made plans for a visit.  After three hours, I sat on a park bench blissfully content.  I was awed by the size and majesty of the trees: pure heaven.

It is hard to convey in words the grandeur of something that one experiences in spirit, sensation and emotion.  Here in the blog, I attempt to do that, and still, I am fearful of failure with this place.  Sitting with the elders in this forest garden gave one a sense of wonder and awe.  Ken Carey in Flat Rock Journal, suggests that a forest is not a forest (I paraphrase) until it has elders.... I imagine that the whole city of trees benefits from the Presence of the Elders in the Morris Arboretum; I envision it as a network system of interweaving, interwebbing support to every street and back yard tree in the city.

Where I live in the Northeast, where storms and other extreme weather affect the size of our trees, a Hop Hornbeam that may be 100 years old will be less than a foot in diameter.  In the Morris Arboretum many of the trees were well over 2 feet in diameter.  Some were several feet wide. To be in their presence was as a benediction.

Regarding the specific trees: The White Ashes - magnificent.  Buckeye, Black tupelo, Tulip tree (which I love to call by its latin name:  Liriodendron Tulipifera) were easily 3 feet in diameter. There are also non-native beauties: Dawn Redwood, also with a beautiful latin name (Metasequoia), Bald Cypress, and an amazing Katsura tree that the traveling family brought back from southeast Asia in the early 1900s.  I will include a picture of this tree, though definitely NON-native:

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It is interesting to note that the connection to this tree came as the purity of its beauty and love, not words.

There were trees that spoke.  And I feel the need to pass on the message that one particular tree gave to me although this one was on a country club side street.  It's message came to me as a surprise.  I Am finding that one must never assume Where one will find the most important message, messenger, or friend.  Stay open to Possibility and surprise, that is the gift.

This is how this particular gift came: when in the city I felt the urge/yearning often to walk under the tall elder trees.  I noticed that when I did so, I would feel noticeably and immeasurably more refreshed.  I was not clear as to why until one time at dusk, as I approached one magnificent Ash, I decided to stop just at the edge of its large canopy of leaves.  I looked up into the growing dark and felt admiration.  Soon, I heard words in my head.  I was surprised by them and found myself questioning myself as I don't usually hear so clearly, nor from a casual walk in a city. So I was unsure.

It seems that the magnificent Ash tree was informing me to trust in their (the trees') support.  But not only me, but all of us are invited to trust in their universal support to listen to our hearts, to listen to the messages of our inner guidance. The words were: Trust in our universal support for light workers with transportational messages.

I share this with you, not knowing how to fully understand this message.  I did note that my energy was once again refreshed, rebooted, reset to return to human interaction.

May this message give you the same lightness.

 

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Hello dear readers,

I am taking time from writing to try to fix the subscription link on this blog.  As some of you may have discovered, it does not work.  I had hoped to publish my next piece about elder trees in Philadelphia, but have been distracted from this focus by the procedural aspects of blogging.

I hope to get this fixed soon as well as get the next piece up for your viewing.

Feel free to write in the "comments: area because that subscription check box appears to work. (The mysteries of computers still baffle me) I am interested in your journey with the trees as well.

The support of the forests feels ever more dear to me and I hope it will support you as well.

Thank you,

Catherine

 

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The hawk calls, the breeze blows words of love, traveling with these words to land on you and me; collecting them as it goes, lifting, uplifting, caressing,  gifting the words to us as it passes: the trees dance these words in a love dance.

To travel this path requires courage, belief in hope and change.  Accepting the love's outpouring is a potent potion without explanation.

The wind blows in change, laughter, scent, hope, fertility for future dreams.  Currents of air moving through me and with me.

Thus the season of summer moves gently, almost imperceptibly to Autumn.

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IMG_7460Walking as I do at night, my senses notice changes in sound and light more keenly. I notice, for example, the stages of the moon, its waxing and waning, its ascent and descent in the sky. Descending the hill prior to the new moon, as I will and did a few nights ago, requires a different kind of negotiation as the dark appears deeper in the apparent absence of the moon.  It requires more frequent stops to check overhead, to see variations in light patterns as it filters through the branches. It requires use of peripheral vision.  I also notice that my hearing increases. I hear the jumping of a frog off the trail as easily as the deer loping away - both can startle me equally. I hear the treetops gathering the wind in for conversation.

If I am too tired, or simply not trusting in my negotiating skills that night, I use my headlamp to avoid "losing my way." Actually, "losing" oneself is usually a gift of discovery.  But I have gotten off-trail un-announced often enough leading me to surprising turns that I don't assume I will always "know" the way, or greet it happily late at night.  Especially, in the dark of the moon, when the Way can feel unclear, un-illuminated; when my belief in my senses is dampened. Best to check often for other signs and patterns.

It was just such an occasion when I began to notice the patterns of the branches overhead. I glanced up while continuing to walk forward, and was awed by the beauty of the moving branches. It was me, of course, who was moving my feet, but it felt, in the growing dark, that the branches were the ones moving-traversing above me in a dance of light and dark, making new patterns in my brain as the black and white high contrast cards held up for infants.

While noticing these patterns one evening, it suddenly dawned on me that the branch designs could be, and probably were purposeful. They were purposeful in design and objective.  And being such they were effecting a new pattern of energy beneath their creation. These patterns were expressing a change of energy.  An example of this would be in the study of feng shui or bagua.  Well, the feng shui of the forest is a work in progress- with endless subtle adjustments during the period of growth and death.  It is Life and focused energy in motion, increasing our experience of Life in a forest. We might not intellectually know what is changed, or how we are effected.  But we leave the forest different than when we entered.

This past week, I witnessed another example of focused energy in motion, when, at the water's edge, 3 bald eagles circled overhead in an unseen air current. They circled higher and higher in their dance of wind, interweaving and moving to a choreography I did not know. I felt wonder. And like the open mind of the baby, received gifts, my conscious awareness changed. What formulas did that dance instill in my mind, so deeply opened by wonder?  Or for that matter, did the clouds above the eagle, as they shifted and changed, open in me? I don't know, nor do we need to.  We respond, listening to our inner dance and feel a shift.  It could be a shift of energy and consciousness, or a inner inspiration from Spirit,  Understood by the heart and soul.

There have been studies performed on the effects of intention on water as it froze into ice crystals showing beautiful designs effected by various intentions.  The questions above feel like a quest for the effects on consciousness in reverse.  What are the effects of focused attention on we humans from precise creative streams of attention? I choose to receive them with open heart like water particles.  I walk today attentive to the patterns surrounding me, opening to their blessings.  Yes, please let me hear your intentioned creations this day.

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A note on the above writing:  This writing is a collaboration of many conversations and writings and to them I give credit and thanks, as well as to the forest and spirit that inspires it.

 

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Liquid Consciousness

The trees, they are quiet on a day like today.  The wind, not hardly breathing, flutters oh so gently through their leaves.  As I write this very sentence down, a breath, a touch, a caress of wind reaches my face, reminding me of its presence. It interacts with my being as one with a consciousness.

It is my impression and observation that the trees and the wind consciously engage in a dance of movement and response, a symbiosis of mutual respect, a creation akin to music and dance. There are times, for example, that the leaves of the trees wave in response to wind that one can feel; there are times that the wind appears to move only after the leaves have lifted and fluttered.  Which came first?

I like to imagine that the forests create this wind. I have seen where they create their own micro-weather. The greater the forest, the larger the effect. One can see this effect in an area as large as the Amazon forests, an area that is vital to the health of earth's weather.  Also, on a much small microcosm, the weather can be shifted and changed under the aegis of the trees of even a small forest.  Often when a road passes between an area of forests, the weather changes.  During the winter, this could mean more Snow. In Summer, here, in my beech forest, it means more gentle breezes for us to enjoy, play in and listen to.

At this moment, I gaze at a Grandmother Beech whose leaves gently flutter on unseen wind. Soon I feel the touch of this breath on me. It is so unimaginably gentle.  As I look around to see if any other trees are responding to that wave of motion, but nothing appears to move.  Then, in a few moments, the large Maple up the hill with its sister Birches, jostle around visibly, waving forcefully, as if to say, "look here, notice me."

The stillness of the day is a contrast to recent weeks during which the wind moved in masses of trees like undulating waves of water,  making the trees look like underwater sea creatures, or forests of seaweed.  And these trees have responded with graceful dances.  It is a flowing watery movement. It appears that the trees are dancing on the hilltops with the wind as their partner. Bending and twisting before returning to center, as seaweed does in response to the tidal motion of the sea.  There is an ebb and flow in the movement like the inhale and exhale, or the rhythmic motion of master qigong hands initiating and responding.  The sounds made in the rustling leaves sounds watery.  It is a laughing joy of aliveness.

But today is different.  Those same dances are only memories or secrets hidden in the trees today.  The trees appear, in the stillness to be listening, to be in rapt attention. Perhaps there is a conversation going on to which I am not yet attuned.  Who is speaking? And how very quiet is the audience on this still day.

The Beech branches under which I sit, feel curious, gentle and attentive.  Is the conversation going on between this tree and that nearby Maple? The one that jostled earlier by the stronger wind?  What is the topic? Wave, toss moves/speaks the maple; flutter, lift responds the Beech branches- buoyed by unfelt breeze.

Master tree, what would you say to me?  I listen carefully now, to feel your touch and truth on my skin and my soul.  Mourning Doves land as I listen.