Dancing Tree Meditation

(From the sacred dancing tree meditation book, “play like a tree”)

“ Learn character from trees, values from roots, and change from leaves” - Tasneem Hameed

Anytime, Anywhere, Centering Meditation

You can just be a tree anytime, anywhere. 

You just play like a tree!

Your own special one. What kind of tree are you?

The first thing your treeness will want is a safe place to stand. So maybe, for example, you are standing in line. Let your psychic roots feel their way down, through the floor, homing their way to Earth. Feel your toes stretching out as you sway gently, even imperceptibly to the others in line, firming your balance in this spot. Let your knees bend just a little, to stay supple and bouncy.

You own this spot on earth where you now stand. It is your birthright. I don’t care who “owns” the land, or “property” where you happen to be standing. If you are alive you have the right to be here, taking up space. Feel this truth, breathe it in.

 Check your posture. Relax, even as you allow your spine to straighten as you now can stand a bit taller, confident in your place of belonging, in line here, and also in the world, here and now, alive and in harmony with all that is. 

This is tree trunk consciousness, perpendicular to the gravitational field of the planet, an audacious assertion of individual being, a miracle against time. Here you are! What an outrageous implausible amazement! 

Your cylindrical inner core trunk can be viewed in your minds’ eye, from above, to see the tree rings. The dot in the center marks a point in time when you initiated verticalness. The rings go on out from the center like a record of time passing. This pole forms and is reinforced anew, each cycle, over time. It stands as an antenna to the sky, a deliberate link from earth toward the infinite heavens. From the dust, life arises, grows, and reaches up to heaven. Heaven showers light and wisdom.

Varying somewhat from culture to culture in distance, your personal space extends out from your body. This is also your domain, here in line. Feel your arms, as your upper tree limbs, holding the weight you carry, dancing in the atmosphere of the room you are in, asserting the intentions you aspire to, responding to the environment in which you stand. Your limbs can reach out, grow, and are your action. This is your work, your power to build in the world. Perhaps one day these limbs will hold the fruits that you have imagined.

The atmosphere around a tree out standing in the world consists of wind and water, sun, and all of the creatures around. The atmosphere in the line where you are standing consists of light and air, but also the presences of each whirling person-universe around you. You will be in the aura of each one, but most importantly you are in the aura of the universe of you, your current weather, how you are thinking and feeling. This is the leaves and twigs part, of your tree. 

So now, with your roots down and your limbs activated, feel your fingers. Bring your thumb and a finger tip together, and press them into... a thought. There is deep meaning in every body gesture, and the mudra language of the hands and fingers is a further realm of significance and nuance. 

The leaves of the tree shape themselves for, and follow, the light of the day, as it changes, even as we change our thoughts constantly. Our tree leaves quiver in the breeze, and we breathe in our atmosphere, the thoughts and moods in the air around us. We are also light seeking creatures.

Trees respire, releasing emotion-chemicals and particles that make rain, or communicate distress to others. We feel, smell, read, hear, and see the others around us. We react, we can respond. We are changed.

We are awake, present, attuned. We hold our center gracefully, like a flower. We stand at the ready. 

This meditation is not about tuning out the rest of the world. It is to gently hold your center so you can be whatever you are here to be.

(This meditation is on a virtual imaginal app. Just stare at your device, as you stand there in line, with everyone else also gazing into their devices, and pretend it’s on there: there’s even a mental picture of your special medicine tree!)