invoking our treeness
odes to the frost line, the tree mystics & our dreaming Earth
Hello, I’m Kate. I’m an herbalist and a spirit gardener, a nightflower, moon poet, star listener, soil tender, and apprentice to the coyotes, clouds, and songbirds. I dream of a collective ecological awakening that remembers all beings and lands as sacred. What I share here arises from a personal longing to help kindle curiosity, awe, and unbridled wild love in the human heart. Welcome to this wellspring of earth mysteries — a gentle place to explore your own love story with our precious planet.
I glanced at her and took my glasses off -
they were still singing.
They buzzed like a locust on the coffee table and then ceased.
Her voice belled forth, and the sunlight bent.
I felt the ceiling arch,
and knew that nails up there
took a new grip on whatever they touched.
"I am your own way of looking at things,"
she said.
"When you allow me to live with you,
every glance at the world around you
will be a sort of salvation."
And I took her hand.
-William Stafford, “When I Met My Muse”
Dear heartful humans, gentle listeners, brave seekers, bright friends on the path,
Into the dark reaches of January’s dream we seep, like crystal sap descending through roots down into Earth’s mysterious heart. It is a heart made of caves and graves, the underland of stones and bones, a vast tunneling terrain of the unknown. But when we close our eyes at night, we get a generous taste of the instinctual, wild magic brewing down there. In there. In us.
We are two days away from the dark moon, and last night it was 0° Fahrenheit here in northern New Mexico. The stars were so ecstatic they climbed in through windows, and the stillness of night froze the world into one glittering timeless moment. Maybe now more than ever, I crave this silence and dark, the depth of listening that becomes available in the generative landscape of winter. Strange as it may sound, all year I wait for January, longing for the soulful poetry of a cold moon, candlelight, and snow-mulched garden soil that has been frozen into a dreamtime slumber.
I fall in love, salivate even, as I imagine the holographic sea of dreams being born beneath the garden and the forest floor. For if you were able to dig down deep enough, you would find a world that is not at all frozen or asleep. It is a world that is warm, even, and every bit alive as you are right now.
the dream guardians
There is an invisible gatekeeper who appears in wintertime, a dark glittering threshold that guards the active dream of the Earth. It is the frost line, meaning the depth to which the cold air renders soil frozen and impenetrable. Below the frost line, the earth remains a steady mild temperature year-round. It is literally cozy down there, even in winter.
The closer to the poles, the deeper the frost line generally gets. And in the special areas of Earth called tundra, there is a magical being named Permafrost, an earth treasure cache who keeps the ground below surface everfrozen with ancient mysteries. Permafrost can be up to 5,000 feet deep… just imagine the constant dreamwork happening way down there! It is really no wonder that the myth of flying reindeer came from these lands, a legend that has enchanted much of the world. Cold dark places are deep dreaming places. I am positively enamored with this mysterious protective wall between the worlds — the frosts, the snows, the ice people, the winter forces of all forms and crystalline origins.
While humans and snow share somewhat of an affectionate understanding, frost is considerably less willing to negotiate. It is as though the frost line is an intentional impasse to not only stop us from disrupting the dream of the Earth, but to urge us to join in the dreaming. This message is particularly clear to me as a gardener, because it literally stops me from being able to work in the garden. A spade cannot break through this firm dream boundary. The land holds up her hand and says No, I am resting now — do join me. In this reminder I hear such loving tenderness arising from Earth, a fervent tendril of care trying to make its way through frozen crust into the human heart: Dear two-leggeds! Your imaginations are powerful, and beautiful, and direly needed. Please, help us brew the great flowering dream of this world. Please add your own wildly fragrant dreams to the cauldron of our shared becoming.
The winter earthbody goes into hushed torpor above ground, so as to allow a magnitude of imagining and concentration of creative force deep in the heart of Earth — and in our own bodies. If we let ourselves rest and unravel enough, if we experiment with quietness and not knowing, if we really pay attention to the images appearing in our dreams and imaginal fields, we might begin to hear the calls of the wild underworld feast taking place beneath our feet.
To me, this is the very point of winter, to listen and dream deeply enough that we remember our heartbreaking love for the world. No matter where we live, even the most subtle seasonal shift into dormancy is a clear invitation for us to tune into the starry screen of the collective dream. There is not much I find more thrilling than this vision. When I close my eyes in winter this is where I go, and even when what I see breaks my heart, it is also full of hope. What I feel in the Earth’s wildest dream is for humans to fall madly in love with this world, to love right through the heartache. The sadness and the beauty in unity are what make this world, and our own lives, glisten and sear with revelatory wonder.
as above, so below { as the soil, so the stars }
When the plants have given themselves back to the land, leaving behind only hollow stalks and lingering seeds as clues to their existence, when colorful flowers and emerald leaves feel like a distant memory from another planet entirely, we are left wandering through a gray and quiet world. And yet it is one of familiar vastness, nearly as blank and boundless as the sky. A snowy field on a gray day is an endless palette, a dreamscape of possibility. The polished night sky becomes a strangely alluring abyss. The winter world reveals itself as a wildly creative experiment, eternally beginning again, forever studying the ancient instructions arising from deep in the Earth and beaming down from the sky. Did it ever occur to us that Earth herself is an apprentice to her own becoming? A brave student, just like us.
Even as a plant lover and devotee of the flowers, I never find myself lonely in their absence. This is because the green ones live mostly in dreamtime, anyway. If you sit with a plant for long enough, you soon become aware that they live in a state of deep meditative love. Their individual medicines and personalities are part of a prismatic song of oneness. Plants are star walkers and underworld journeyers, in total service to the cosmic collective. Perhaps this is why they are largely unattached to their physical bodies, readily offering themselves up as food and medicine, with an ease and generosity unthinkable to most humans. Plants are the Earth’s original mystics.
Of course any being who can eat starlight is a mystic, and can travel through time and space. The blueprint of plant love is infinitely painted across our world. On a clear frigid night, I look into the sky and see a vast expanse of fertile soil, flowering with stars. I wave to them, and tearfully let them know I’m looking forward to their return to the meadows this spring.
the tallest mystics
There is a kind of plant mystic who stands alongside us through the depths of winter, loving us through it all. They are the towering timeless storytellers who breathe life and light into us all, the ones who tenderly remember the moment when you took your very first breath, and have loved you ever since. They are the deep-rooted, starry-leafed ones with trunks, hearts and crowns, whose love for our world is so palpable that I can’t seem to write about them without crying.
The trees. Oh my aching heart, the trees. The gentle, supremely loving wise giants of the plant family, a vertical axis of wisdom whose roots reach deep into the intermingling mysteries of Earth, beyond the frost line, whose crown stretches high into the glittering sky. They are the watchkeepers and bridges between the worlds. They tell the magical stories of death and the cycles of resurrection, and bring us the news of cosmic oneness, our starry origins beyond this physical form.
Imagine the form of a tree for a moment, from roots to trunk to branches. They are clear channels for consciousness to flow between the worlds. As Woman Stands Shining (Pat McCabe) says of the photosynthesizers, not only are trees and plants gathering starlight and carrying it down into Earth, they are also broadcasting information about our planet into the cosmos. Their conversations with our local star are reciprocal. What planetary news do you think the beloved trees are sharing with the sun?
If all plants are dreamers of love, just imagine the force of love generated by the trees. Many of them are hundreds or even thousands of years old, standing peacefully in their place of belonging, quietly witnessing us through it all. We would be lost without them. I am so thankful, in a world of increasing loss of beings of all species, including our own, that trees still stand among us. May we use our voices to speak for these huge-hearted ancient ones. May we spend more time listening to their stories of love and planetary togetherness.
invoking your treeness
I believe trees are the wise teachers many of us have been longing to apprentice with. Some of us spend a lifetime seeking the right human mentor, teacher or muse, meanwhile the trees have been patiently waiting right outside our doorsteps. We so often forget to include the other species in our quest for a spiritual teacher.
There is a dream waiting for us in the forest, one we are all born seeking: community. Down in the rich rhizomatic underworld, the trees are part of vast tapestries of mychorrizal kinship and connection. Oh, to be so woven into a vibrant, living ecosystem — to be witnessed and celebrated in our individuality by a community of wise elders and friends. To irrefutably belong, beyond all human ideas of loneliness and separation.
What we know about trees is that they provide nutrients and medicine not just to fellow trees of their same species, but to the entire forest — tree and otherwise. Their gifts are for everyone. These are caretakers who do not discriminate, they do not withhold love from anyone. Trees teach us to participate in a love that includes the whole world.
Forest, woodland, glade, alpine meadow, these are sanctuaries of beingness, or as Zen master Dōgen called it, “treeness” — the best word ever — where the hardened parts of our identities dissolve in a way that allows us to interlace with the world, like tree branches and roots. Trees are the guardians of our interrelational mythos, our deepest heart essence and offering to the world.
When I first read the word treeness, it immediately felt like a collective soul image for our planet. Poet David Whyte speaks of soul as being the “largest conversation you are individually capable of having with the world.” The William Stafford poem I opened with touches a similar thread— the muse, the mysterious glimmer of inspiration that calls you to soul-centric living, is your own particular way of seeing the world. Your particular presence is a vital missing nutrient the Earth has dreamt of. Soul is the knowing that, like roots and mychorrizae, you are already made of a million intimate relationships, within you and around you. This is your treeness.
the treeness of the great earth, high sky, bright sun, and clear moon
derives from the treeness of the old plum tree.
they have always been entangled,
vine with vine.
( Dōgen )
Every forest branch moves differently
in the breeze, but as they sway
they connect at the roots.
(Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks)
Treeness means letting your heart’s deepest longings have a voice, against all better judgment. It means fearlessly engaging with your own dreams, night and waking, tracking them, drawing them, dancing with the images, speaking these wild stories out loud as you walk. Living them. Yes, it is edgy, and can tend to lead us “astray” from the more practical path we were following. That’s the point of treeness: to be fully, unapologetically alive. Our treeness is how we feed the world, and it is how we are fed and loved in return. There is a friendliness to it, and so much poetry.
{ an invitation } dreaming with the trees
Like roots, our hearts are already braided into the heart of Earth. By following these roots down into the dreamtime underworld, we can access the collective heartache of the world. We can also receive information for how to move forward in a way that brings comfort and active care to the planetary community. The trees are doing this all the time.
For mysterious reasons related to soul, we tend to find a curious resonance with very specific nature beings. If you and I were to take a walk in the forest together, we might find the same tree beautiful, but we would each experience its allurement in very personal ways. That particular intimacy is the key to your own deepest heart. The way you see and feel the tree is entirely unique to you, and it is your gift.
Here is an invitation to find your own allurement to a certain tree, and to enter into a friendship, apprenticeship, or even romance with this one. It doesn’t matter whether the tree is in a wild place, your backyard or a public park. Whichever tree you find, they have most likely been dreaming of your company for a very long time.
As beings who spend their lives mostly in meditative stillness, trees have active inner lives. They help us to awaken these imaginal and visionary capabilities in ourselves. Go to the tree with the intention to sit, listen, and dream with this being for at least twenty minutes. You can lean against the trunk of the tree, or sit a few yards away so that you can see each other. Wear extra warm clothing if it’s cold out. Some people strongly believe in asking the tree’s permission before entering into any kind of conversation or touch — I trust that you will know what to do. The only instructions here are to be present with the tree, and to practice, as William Stafford said, “your own way of looking at things.”
Allow the relationship to unfold naturally, but do remember to tend it as you would any friendship. Bring songs, share tea, stories, poetry, write a love letter and read it out loud to the tree. Visit the tree in your daydreams. Be curious about the creative gifts you feel stirring within you. There is no need to hold back with the trees — let yourself fall in love.
The trees have been waiting for us. Let’s go and sit with them, and become walking tree people, living the wild poetry of our own unstoppable love.
The Quiet Listeners, by Laura Foley
Go into the woods
and tell your story
to the trees.
They are wise
standing in their folds of silence
among white crystals of rock
and dying limbs.
And they have time.
Time for the swaying of leaves,
the floating down,
the dust.
They have time for gathering
and holding the earth about their feet.
Do this.
It is something I have learned.
How they will bend down to you
so softly.
They will bend down to you
and listen.
thank you so much for being here.
Kate, this piece had me in tears. I was just starting to get fed up with the cold weather, and you’ve woken me up to a world of magic. I am so looking forward to hanging out with a tree soon. Your work is so important for this world!
I want to read this beautiful piece over and over. Each section is full of treasure and your writing is divine. I feel so fortunate to have found you at this juncture of my life.