"The wisest and noblest teacher is nature itself." -Leonardo Da Vinci
SHAMANIC TREE MEDICINE
HOW TREES TEACH
Awakening to the full-spectrum of our sensitivity.
There are countless myths, folktales and analogies characterizing trees as teachers of humanity. From the fruit of knowledge presented in the Genesis myth to the Germanic vision of Yggdrasil, the tree that holds up the structure of the world, to the refinement of these folkloric truths in Kabbalah’s famous Tree of Life schema and the phylogenetic tree purported to tell the story of the scientific origin of species.
Dendrites, the extensions of the neurons which form our brain, are trees—at least in the same structural way that the phylogenetic tree is a tree. River deltas are trees. Languages themselves are trees encapsulating the syntactic logic embedded within phonologies. DNA expression is unraveled in strands of RNA that take on the form of… trees.
Downshifting from the idea of trees as mythic or abstract objects, we remember trees as embodied creatures with immense life-force, sentience, presence and character. The questions become personal. Who is the Oak? How did the Oak come to be this way? What does the Oak remember? What does the Oak see? What does the Oak say? What does the Oak know?
Trees perceive and communicate with bio-electricity. This is also how human beings perceive and communicate. But we have forgotten the full-spectrum of our ability to perceive and communicate. Due to modern materialism, a culture of technology and education systems conflated with national ideology, most of us are restricted to a cognitive mode of experience subjugated by concepts. This means that our world has become too narrow, our language too rigid and our collective vision too myopic. Our bodies, our emotions and collectivity are suffering from this misalignment.
Trees speak to us through our sensitivity. And this is part of why human connection with these beings is so crucial at this time. In order to communicate with trees, we must remember how to dial into our innate sensitivity to feel, to discern, to perceive and to comprehend. There is a muscle or an intuition which must be developed in order to trust the information which comes to us at subtler levels of communication. It is physical. It is real. And it is who we are. This is the core teaching of trees to humans. Remember who you are, little mighty one.
MASTER TREES
The ancient teachers we learn from.
METASEQUOIA
Metasequoia is a Master Tree unique upon the Earth. Before the Dawn Redwood was found alive and enshrined by local Chinese villagers in the 1940’s, it was known to scientists only through the fossil record; thought to have gone extinct over one sixty million years ago. Before the last ice age, Metasequoia covered the Northern Arctic in coniferous canopies when the region was still a tropical swamp. Given that her wisdom is from the age of dinosaurs.
Metasequoia embodies the grandmother spirit. Among her many talents is the unique capacity to help open up understanding of our authentic gifts, abilities and spiritual path. Metasequoia, like the Grandfather Spirit of tobacco, has the power to cast vision down the “long path,” guiding us towards our individual road of transformation and awakening the seeker to the light within. Metasequoia offers us insight into our potential for deeper rooting and reveals the work which needs to be done today, for us to evolve tomorrow.
METASEQUOIA GLYPTOSTROBOIDES
LIVE OAK
QUERCUS VIRGINIANA
The mighty oak is almost too massive for explanation. Indeed, its kingly and thunderous nature has been sacralized by cultures throughout history. The word “druid” itself originates from the Celtic word for “oak” meaning “door.” The thunder gods Thor and Zeus were both enshrined in Oak groves. The oak is used throughout the bible to describe men of righteousness, with the Hebrew word for Oak said to derive from the word for “God.”
The oak is aligned with the solar hero; the psychological center of the self, venturing into the unknown. This master tree embodied primal masculine energy, or the electrical, yang force of the universe. The oak awakens the center of the self, strength, endurance and wisdom—even in the most trying of situations. As a keystone species supporting over 500 other species, Oak is a teacher of what it means to embody royalty, nobility, generosity and power in service of community.
WHITE BIRCH
BETULA PAPYRIFERA
Birch is unequivocally known as a mother tree, by nearly all cultures living within her stead. She is considered one of the first trees to sprout after the last ice age and is known to be the first species to emerge from the soil after forrest fire, as a tree which purifies and regenerates ecosystems. Used for tools by indigenous across the world, she also has strong medicine—herbal & spiritual. Siberian shamans sought the White Birch for initiation and old Shamans would die at her feet believing the tree to contain all nine worlds of heaven, earth & hell.
White Birch is a powerful conduit of light, renewal and healing. She calms and restores the psyche, with the power to loosen calcified regions of the persona, rearranging the ego and setting us into greater alignment with our path of spiritual evolution. White Birch helps us remember how to bend instead of break under the stress of change and difficulty. She is an alter of new beginnings, protection, good luck & faith for what is to come. At her deeper levels of instruction, White Birch is a teacher of elemental wisdom and a philosopher of night.
TOBACCO
NICOTIANA RUSTICA
Tobacco is an ancient plant (not a tree I know) indigenous to the Americas known to be in medicinal use for at least 20,000 years. Thought to be the oldest plant cultivated on Earth, Tobacco has a long and robust history of being utilized as a self-contained pharmacy, a bond of peace and a teacher of shamanic wisdom. It is only in the modern era that this medicinal master plant has been adulterated and stripped of its culture of divinity. Part of the work we do with tobacco is righting this relation.
Considered near-universally to embody the masculine archetype of the grandfather spirit, tobacco teaches wise use of power. Given that this plant contains both poison and medicine, a key aspect of his message to humanity is what it means to navigate the difference. When used with integral knowledge in alignment with the healing spirit, Tobacco is recognized as a plant which can purge the body system of emotional baggage, parasites and malaise, including mental confusion and cognitive dissonance. This enables us to walk the Earth with greater freedom and strength to confront life’s necessary challenges, leading us forward on the humble path to true wisdom.
TREE DIETING
Semi-fasted isolation while drinking bark tea of a master tree.
The basics rules of tree dieting are simple:
Abstain from sex, ejaculation and all substances besides a bland food menu of saltless starches and the bark tea being dieted.
The primary benefit of fasting in this way is the increased awareness to our sensitivity. It feels like becoming more sensitive. In reality, we are witnessing greater depths of what we are, all the time.
We abstain from any form of sex or leaking of sexual energy because this is the healing energy, or conscious energy, which the tree will operate on, work with and entrain over course of a diet.
Most diets are held in isolation to increase our ability to detox, rest, perceive and learn. Though it is possible to undertake a long-term diet protocol intended to integrate with work / life duties.
We can diet to heal. We can diet to learn.
Sometimes these two intentions intertwine and lead to the same outcome. Other times, we need to be very clear about what we need at a certain point in our path. A longer list of trees, plants and herbs are available when the need for physical healing is present.
The actual benefits of tree dieting cannot easily be typed out. When a tree begins speaking to you in psychic tongues while sober, a very deep sense of reality shifting can happen. It’s a different than taking a psychedelic, “going there” and then coming back. Because when diet trees, we haven’t gone anywhere.
We’ve been here the whole time, waking up to who we are and what it is our bodies are capable of.
THE DIETS
8 Day:
Full-Isolation, 1/2 Liter of Bark Tea & 1 Serving of Tobacco Paste per day. Two ceremonies.
15 Day:
Full-Isolation, 1/2 Liter of Bark Tea & 1 serving of Tobacco Paste per day. Three ceremonies.
3 Month:
Undertaken at home & Integrated with life / work duties. Includes some food & sexual restrictions. 1 cup of bark tea per day & 1 serving of Tobacco Paste per day. Two ceremonies.
THE IMPACT
Health
Cultivate the physical vitality you desire with the assistance of powerful plants & trees. Balance the emotion. Carry a clear mind.
Spirituality
Experience the radiance of source. Step into alignment with life purpose. Receive support from spirit through a transformational process of rapid self-development.
Relationships
Heal and strengthen core relationship to self. Release old agreements from the past and create space for more authentic connections to grow.
Family
Address familial and ancestral wounds. Clear family behavioral patterning and emotional imprinting to birth a more profound sense of human kinship, communication and truth.
Legacy
Be the change you wish to see in the world. Embrace the path of leadership by example and magnetize others who also seek to walk in wisdom.
Network
Mature your community and join with powerful allies who walk the path in service to collective evolution.
