David Wagoner‘s poem, “Lost” is one of my favourite metaphors for finding a way forward in difficult times. It is a siren call to live in the present moment no matter how that reality presents itself, to learn to pay attention to ‘what is‘, and not waste precious life energy on ‘what is not.‘ Good news: the trees around me are never lost!

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.

I love trees and always have. Twenty-five years ago a dear friend introduced me to the boreal forest of Manitoba, a magical place where the Prairies’ aspen parkland cozies up to the granite rock of the Canadian Shield. She said, “I want to show you my church.” Indeed it was a place of quiet beauty and ancient longing. The black spruce and the jack pine, once strangers, quickly became my friends; their scruffy, stately presence always welcoming and their persistence in the face of adversity – little soil and wicked winds— always a balm for my sometimes-weary soul. I love to sleep under their protection. I feel so alive in their presence, at home in myself.

Here, in this moment, it is possible to know and be known, to belong. Many encounters with trees have graced me with this knowledge. How so? As the lungs of the planet, they breathe belonging! If you are reading this reflection, you are likely breathing (!) and you can thank the miracle of photosynthesis, or divine energy as David Suzuki calls it, as it is a critical factor in the removal of carbon dioxide from, and the contribution of oxygen to, the atmosphere. All those tree-friends helping me breathe, keeping me alive to belong to Life.

The forest breathes. Listen, it answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven,
No two branches are the same to Wren.

The forest breathes. Listen. Pay attention. Contemplate: that is, pay attention without judgement. Without definitions, labels, personal likes and dislikes, just paying attention, without imposing yourself on the other. Stephen Isaacs suggests this attentive exercise: When you are low on energy and in need of renewal, go out in nature and find a large tree and put your back against it. The life-force, or grace if you will, that energizes the tree will slowly enter your own being and bring you back to balance. It may take from ten to twenty minutes but you will notice a difference—a re-connection, a belonging. The forest knows where you are. God is not out there; God is through all, with all, and in all. Nothing is excluded, everything belongs. You belong. And the trees know this.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost to you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you. ¹