Tree Prana

Todd and I will mark our seventh wedding anniversary in less than a week. Last night, we walked though Granby and stopped to visit one of the oldest trees in Connecticut – the Dewey-Granby Oak tree on Day Street. We visited this noble tree on one of our earliest dates.

Other than a small plaque, there is thankfully no big fanfare or signage near the beautiful tree, so it can easily be passed by without noticing much more than its regal size. This is a good thing. We humans tend to ruin things once we discover them.

Of course, I bear hug the Dewey-Granby tree every time we stop there. Tree hugging is a typecast hippie pastime but let me assure you: there is powerful prana in trees, and wrapping oneself around the trunk of a tree like this one is potent plant medicine. I’ve had many amazing communications with trees. I’ve always known their healing properties, and I’ve protected and respected them.

The biological behaviors of trees favor and minister to the biological behaviors of humans, and there are reams of scientific data that conclude that physical contact with trees improve emotional health and cognitive abilities, alleviate depression, anxiety, and headaches, and improve concentration and creativity.

I’m not going to start flinging references to all the data available that supports the medicinal effects of contact with trees. Rather, what will totally convince you is empirical experience. So, as soon as you’ve finished reading this, give a tree – any tree - a long, loving hug. It doesn’t have to be the glorious, ancient Dewey-Granby tree. Any tree of any size or variety will restore you. Trust me. They’re magic.

As I hugged the tree closely, with wonder again at its beauty and strength and all the things it’s seen through the centuries, I fell in love once more with Mama Earth. All this glow and goodness is available to me, to us, all the time, in spite of how we’ve ravaged precious Earth. But our Mother keeps giving. She’s perfect ahimsa.

Barbie xo