The tree listens

I sat with someone recently and told them my pain, my grief and my confusion. We were outside, always the best place for emotions to be expressed, digested, perhaps laid to rest even. I had chosen the spot, under a tree-friend of mine, where I’d been doing my yoga practice for some days. There were rocks around us and the scent of herbs in the air. The wind rustled the leaves overhead, the waves meeting the shore somewhere below were faintly audible if we were both quiet, between words, between my sobs. I cried as I spoke, told her what I hadn’t yet formed into words and phrases, feelings I hadn’t given a name to. My body had felt them and my mind had tried to make sense in its turning patterns. But without an outlet these thoughts spiralled into nowhere helpful.

She was quiet but attentive. She watched me carefully and I knew (as I have sat in her position too as the listener) that she noticed when my eye gaze skittered sideways whenever direct contact felt overwhelming, when my shoulders rolled forward in defeat, or when I lifted my chin with a courage that bordered on defensiveness and defiance, and when finally I sighed, nodded and gave a small, tight smile. I was done. I’d said what needed to be said.

She offered her perspective, her wisdom, starting with an acknowledgement of my feelings, a validation, a witnessing. She asked some questions to clarify her understanding (or perhaps for my own clarifying benefit). Finally she offered some practical advice and a suggestion of how she could participate further if I needed it. And only as we stood up from this place did she offer physical contact, a tender embrace for as long as I needed to be held.

It was ‘textbook’, a careful progression that held me safe and protected both our boundaries. Yet I’m sure it was learned naturally from years of experience of sitting in both roles, rather than as a step-by-step skill taught in any formal therapeutic setting. And for me it was a careful progression too even to arrive here, after months of observing my own emotions; sitting with them in silence or moving with them in the shapes and stretches of yoga asana, with breathwork as an alchemy and a transformative force. Only at this time was I ready to speak and share my feelings.

It was a meeting of two humans, on this hillside, under this tree. A powerful experience, despite the simplicity and brevity. I didn’t want to have this conversation, as it was predicated on difficult experiences, troubling emotions, and I felt so raw with it. My deep need to be vulnerable in the eyes of another has taken years for me to to be comfortable with — and now I realise what a gift it is, what a beautiful ability I’ve cultivated. It was truly a sweet moment, there under the tree.

One of the practical suggestions she gave me was to create a ritual where I might let go of the past and embrace the future more fully. I’m on the brink of being able to do this, we agreed. But what is a ritual? How do I create one that’s meaningful and powerful? She gave me a reading suggestion for inspiration which I’m part way through, my brain rushing ahead of the chapters and all the while offering me a worrying commentary that I can’t do this, I don’t have the creativity or spirituality or whatever it would take…

But as I put the book aside today, gaze out of the window and remember this time of sharing, I realise that in itself was a form of ritual. I chose the spot, I selected the participants, we arranged ourselves formally in sitting postures, we moved through emotions and I shifted from isolation to greater connection, with a sense of final release. I had unburdened myself in the eyes of another, with a tree as my witness, and the earth as a stable support for us both.

So maybe I already have everything I need within me and I can do this.

I think she told me that too.