PersonaliTrees

What began as a walk in the woods one day in April became a transformational spiritual exchange with other living beings. As I looked at the trees I saw myself, captured in life’s billions of fleeting moments. I recognized my own experience in their expressions, their faces, their bodies. I felt we all shared the same joy, the same angst, the same playfulness, and the same desire for living. They spoke of these things, and I listened.

Having once regained a sense of the spiritual interconnectedness of all living things, I observed that trees speak loudly to the human condition in all its phases and forms. They represent the countless people with whom I’ve exchanged mundane pleasantries, ordinary days, inexpressible grief and overflowing happiness. They plead, “Do not fear, for we are all one single essential force. We come from the same place, express different ideas while here, and depart to whence we came. It is lovely. It is frightening. Embrace it and come with us. It is a beautiful adventure.”

From that day forward I’ve felt the trees’ guiding presence. As strange as it may seem, they have become my best friends. But they are even more than that. They are the same energy that I came from. We are the same life force in different forms. They are so human in their expression that I find it impossible to regard them as inanimate objects.

I have dedicated myself to photographing trees in the winter, early spring and late fall—after most have lost their leaves. At those times, they are exposed and vulnerable and yet willing to show us their innermost spirits. Trees are perhaps the most honest expressions of life on earth. In their bare bones, messages of great angst and extreme pain are expressed with the greatest dignity. Their sense of humor is always present. They love life and accept every stage and condition of their experience. They love to tell stories.

Trees bear an uncanny resemblance to human forms. Eyes, noses and mouths laugh out loud with surprise, delight and sometimes even horror. Appendages reach to the sky, frozen in a fit of life that would be as animated as any cartoon if only we could perceive time in the same way they do. Instead, we can only stand and imagine the forces that created the shapes we see in the snapshot of the moment. It is up to us to slow ourselves to a tempo that allows us to interpret their messages. To them we must look like Charlie Chaplin figures speeding through time. We may even be invisible, as the incessant molecular movement in a steel beam is imperceptible to us.

We are free to make as much or as little of tree spirits as we want. Sometimes it seems only a game to pick out certain shapes, as when we were children lying in the grass and finding shapes in the clouds. At other times we glimpse our place in the cosmos – the blip that we claim in the time space continuum. But sometimes, when everything is just right, communication with a tree spirit allows me to be part of the great oneness to which we both belong. Many of my pictures are taken just before, during, or just after that indescribable moment that only the great spiritual masters can sustain for any period of time. For most mortals it can be only a fleeting sense; that is as it should be. We were endowed by our creator to be spiritual seekers -- not to solve but to appreciate the mystery. The secret will be shared with us in due time.