Tree sitting

Reading The Oak Papers encouraged me to go back up into a tree. The writer spends a lot of time sitting in his Stag Head Oak and the only one that I can climb is Aulus. So, up I went.

It was lovely up there - though I wanted to go higher and was a little frustrated at my own fear. Also, the tree has a lot of epicormic growth and I wanted to be careful that I didn't break off any of the twigs.

There are two places to sit - one on what I think was the main branch which, for some reason, grew out instead of up. This branch is much larger than the continuing trunk of the tree. I think there's something about apex branches... but, whatever. I am not sure. That looks out over the fields. Or, I can sit where another almost right angle branch stretches in the other direction, which looks back at some blackthorn. Strangely, this was more relaxing.

This is such a wonderful tree. So quirky and individualistic.

Once I had got down, I went and sat inside. I wanted to show that I really AM inside, but the camera doesn't show that and from outside now you can't even see the hollow.

As I was in there, I thought about something my friend Francesca said to me when I told her about what trees can't tell me.

She said:

Anyway I realise now that what I wanted/needed then is what I want/need now - a hollow place, a neutral loving sensation of heldness that makes me feel secure enough to see MYSELF as the “they who know” that can tell me what to do.... I really like that idea that hollow is not necessarily empty. Reminds me of the difference between a void and an abyss - the former is empty, lacking, while the latter is simply unknown, full of potential.

"A neutral loving sensation of heldness". Yes. That's right. And as I sat there, I realised something. Aulus, unlike most trees, has not invested most of his growth going up - he shares it between up and right and left. He is, like me, scattergun, rather than laser beam. Maybe it really is OK to be like that.