We all pass by trees and some type of vegetation each day.  In the spirit of mindfulness, everything and anything around us can be inspiring, it’s all about how we each decide to process and focus on an item, event or person.

This story is about the vision of trees and how it helps meditate and think about life.  First, let’s get out of the way that “Trees” is an excellent Rush song.  A simple story, yet relates to human behavior, musically the song has several phases, acoustic, then the whole band, ending with a big roar! But my obsession for Rush is the subject of another book one day……

I started mediating with the sleep apnea I have in 2014.  I never expected to have a health challenge so early in life.  Yes, we all know as we get older there’s going to some health issue at some point that slows us down, and we all have to succumb to some health issue eventually.  God designed the human life cycle that way.  I can’t say fully why, maybe God can fill me in more one day…..but I’m not expecting to have that conversation anytime soon.

So I start meditating.  At first, the focus was just on breathing, since that was part of the sleep apnea issue, being a mouth breather, etc.  Being the continuous learner I am, at one point I started to work with someone just on my mediation, a meditation coach I guess best way to describe.  I had first got to know the person by taking their yoga classes.

With the sleep apnea I was in this strange phase of life having to try things I never thought I would need to do, and even thought some were a little out there.

But now here I was doing yoga, meditating, breathing exercises, journaling, mindfulness, and some other things like walking, writing lyrics, listening to music that I always enjoyed.

The meditation got into trying different techniques to see what worked.  It’s an individual thing and while having a mantra or vision may work for some, starring at some object or just not thinking about anything works for others.

I vary what I do, so that my method doesn’t get routine or boring.  Sometimes things in life get routine without realizing, and you’re bored with something and not sure why.

Each time meditate, I cycle through a few different methods.  I start just by focusing on the breathing. Slowing the rate down, listening and feeling to the air move through my nostrils, feelings and sensing how my chest and abdomen are moving through the breath cycle. Slowing down the mind and sort of doing a data bump to not think about anything at all, at least for a short period.  We all joke about the IT desk people, what do they always first say, have you turned everything off and turned back on? Four freaking years of college computer courses and that’s their first question!   Well, our brains are complex, and since we can’t just unplug for a few seconds, meditation is the next closest thing to dumping out the clutter in the short-term memory to regroup, refocus, re-energize.

Then sometimes I will start to focus on an image.  Just focusing on the image, not thinking too much about what it means to me, I do that when not meditating.  When mediation just focus on the image and sub-consciously the rest is there.

For trees, there are two aspects that help me think about my stressors, staying grounded in life, and how to keep forward and hopefully looking.

Let’s start with the roots.  My neighborhood most houses have huge Oak trees around.  Massive trunk bases, they grow fast, lots of branches all sizes, and yes tons of leaves in the fall.

The root are the trees support and life system.  As the tree grows above ground, so are the roots below ground. You know, the ones that get into your sewer line and clog it, the ones that push you sidewalk up and make it uneven.  But the roots keep that massive tree up and feed the water and nutrients to all part of the tree.

I think about the roots as our Faith in God.  My Faith is not something you can see, but it’s the foundation of my life.  It’s not something you can touch, you could dig up the tree and roots of course, but not normally.  The roots/Faith are your internal spiritual engine that all is all inter-related with your physical health, mental health, emotions, attitude, resilience in life.

The above ground part of the tree well let’s start with the bark.  We all have to have some defensive layers in life to deal with the stressful events, days, people, unexpected parts of life.  I call that our Resilience Tool Kit (RTK).  We each should have our own unique and someone should told me years ago, hey you need to have one.  By the time I realized I needed one, then it took time to find the right tools to put in it.

Mine today includes the meditation, walking, biking, animal watching, music, yoga, breathing exercises, journaling, writing, meeting new people, looking for new ways to learn.  Being open to the unexpected in life good and bad.

The branches – well let’s start with the dead ones, because almost every day the Oak tree has some, mostly smaller ones just starting to grow, and the wind was not their friend.  Bigger ones when it rains or winds from storms.  So again, we all have storms of life to weather, we sway, and sometimes lose a branch or two, but hopefully those roots keep us standing.

Each branch in its own part of the life cycle.  New sprouts and branches popping out that to me represent the new paths of life each day, new opportunity, new hope, new ways to say, I’m not going to let the idiot being rude, disrespectful or mean to me get to me, have to rise above it somehow.  The family member or friend that abandons or disappoints when you needed them most, you think of new branch starting, and that there’s a new connection, friend, relative out there you will find and will help you in some way.  Even if just to meet for lunch and talk about simple things to relax your mind for a short period in a day.

There’s no set pattern to how the new branches grow.  Kind of like life, how many unexpected events, turns, twists has life taken you on?  It’s good to a have broad plans and goals in life.  But it’s also important to realize, may that unexpected detour happened for a reason and it’s a road of opportunity you didn’t think of before.

The leaves, yes, we’re back to raking them all up again in the fall, or however you choose to get rid of them.  I have to admit, life gets busy, I sometimes choose the do nothing leave methodology……don’t rake at all until most have blown down the street or onto your neighbors……and I am hoping they are not reading this reflection…….but it balances out because I have a 26 inch snow blower, mmm, suddenly in a big snow storm, people remember where I live!

All good in life, we’re here to help each other out, all happens in different ways each and every day.

I’ve learned to go with my gut instincts more in life.  Having worked in a big city, there’s more people asking for money than you can shake a stick at.  I try to give to some sometimes, you can’t to all, or you have nothing left.  So which ones to give to……one day this guy starts a conversation and I figured right away it was leading up to him going to ask for money…….but he had a different story than a homeless or beggar……said he needed a few dollars for gas to get drive back home about two hours away.  He said he was in the area to help a friend with some work, didn’t have to expect to go across the one Delaware River bridge and needed a few dollars to get home.  He asked me to write his name and number down so I could look him up later and see he was legit.  Well, I thought, either he’s a new way of beggar or his story is legit.  I gave him some money, he was appreciative, and I had the contact info to check on. Not like I was going to ever see him again if it was just a scam.  But something just felt different.  I kept the piece of paper for months, and finally curiosity got the best of me, I looked up the name and contact info, yes, it matched what he gave and that he was a day labor for contractors.  At that point, even if it was false info it made no difference, but wait, it did make a difference, because it confirmed that my off the cuff instincts that his story was good, and to help him, wow, someone I was now able to assess people and kind of gauge whether being told a bullshit story or a genuine one. (years of auditing and fraud investigation may have helped a little to)

So, the leaves are all those little daily events, interactions, happenings we go through all the time.  Some are more major, like losing a loved one, major health issues, etc….but most of the time it’s the small daily things we can let accumulate in a good way of bad way.

And, like all trees, there’s an end at some point………I will close with one more story.  I deer hunt, 65 acres private land, mountains, trees, creeks, rocks tossed around like pebble from last ice age…..God’s Country!!!  I could sit all day in the woods! So one day it’s raining all morning while sitting in my deer stand.  I’m sitting on a hill side, have wide view of woods and fields.  It finally stops raining around 10 AM, skies start to clear, wind dies down, everything calm.  All of a sudden, I hear this loud crack……and whoooooosh, them BAM, loud thud!!  About 75 yards away 6’ by 15-foot branch that had become dead and cracked off at the trunk and took it’s final journey.  I think about this all the time.  First, thank God I was under that tree at the time…….Second, why did the branch fall when it did?  It was raining and very windy all through the night and most of that morning.  Yet when the rain and wind ended, all was calm all was bright, that’s when it let loose and couldn’t last a moment longer.  I don’t why, I just have to think about things like this.  There’s just no explanation to some things in life, most like this you just have to shrug it off, move one, put another Rush album on……….

Keep the Faith, Don’t let others keep new dreams from SPROUTING, it’s okay to BARK at people if they doubt you, LEAF them behind if needed, they are DEAD wood……..

Tony Chaplain

5/24/2020