the intentionally slow growth of trees teaches us about the value of growing slowly

and together: next inner poet calling session this sunday 🍂

Welcome back to my mini-series of me sharing what I’m learning from trees around interdependence. That’ll also be our theme in the next Inner Poet Calling group session. Thank you for those who have signed-up already. I feel so honoured. Every single one of you matters a whole lot to me. Your support feels like oxygen & CO² combined. A deep inhale and exhale — all in one. Your support fuels my creativity. Yes, I could also write and send my offers into the void, trusting that I matter, my words matter, even if they are not read by anyone but me. That’s how I photosynthesize. It’s possible to make food out of the sun without eating anyone. At least, for tree beings. Yet, every being who enters my world with an energy of reciprocation opens doors I cannot even imagine. By connecting with our inner poet, I’m not saying that all of the embodied wisdom is in us alone. I believe it is dispersed amongst us collectively and when we connect, we get to share it. Share the missing pieces. We become portals to each other. Imagine that at birth you were given your own unique embodied wisdom — one that only you have. It is part of each of our inner poet callings to figure out what that is and to potentially share it, because when we hide it for too long, the collective suffers and we do too. That’s an embodied wisdom I’m sharing with you, but you also get to disagree. Could you imagine inviting a friend to this offering? Is there someone you would love to learn alongside with? I’m doing Liberation Practice Field with a friend and with the consent of the facilitator, we’re sharing the costs. That’s how we’re even able to afford it. So, dare with me. Be interdependent, like a tree. I’ll let you invite someone for free. Just contact me!

“Trees don’t like to make things unnecessarily difficult. Why bother to grow a thick, sturdy trunk when you can lean comfortably against your neighbors? […] Wherever it hurts, that’s where the tree must strengthen its support structure.”

— from The Hidden Life of Trees

Can you feel the transformational force within these words? In me, there’s an “unnecessarily difficult”-echo. Unnecessarily difficult. Unnecessarily difficult. Unnecessarily difficult… I exhale. A sigh of painful recognition and promising relief.

This passage opens a soil of questions for me: Where do systems of oppression make life unnecessarily difficult for us? Where do we? Can we name it? Pinpoint locations. Without shaming ourselves but with genuine treelike curiosity for survival, can we ask: Do we collaborate in our own demise? Do we — without intending to but because we forsake leaning comfortably on our neighbors — destroy ourselves?

I’m feeling confronted. Trees are gently confrontational beings, I tell you. This morning, one of them told me: “Take your time.” My time? Does that mean, I should sleep earlier? Not write so late, as I do. I feel called out. I love writing in the middle of the night. That’s often the only time I find time. Oh, that’s what they mean? Taking MY time. They might mean that having my own bio-poetic-rhythm doesn’t mean I’m rushing it. Cool. One thing less to worry about and be perfectionistic around.

What’s that one thing for you?

Something that is creating a huge relief in my practice of offering sessions is that I’m giving myself full permission to reschedule anytime, if I get sick, am too exhausted or simply because there is anti-capitalistic, anti-productive, JOY wanting me to make space for it in my schedule. In full mutuality, anyone who books with me, receives the same generosity. You get to cancel and reschedule anytime.

A city tree without the needed support structure slowly being strangled by ivy.

The neighboring tree in my city garden is already almost fully covered in ivy. Today, I learned that ivy is a parasite that often lives on after its host dies. To me, it’s a living example of how the fate of our neighbors is our fate too. Who if not our neighbors, in the broadest sense, shares literal common ground with us?

“Don’t parents want their offsprings to become independent as quickly as possible? Trees at least would answer this question with a resounding no. […] Scientists have determined that slow growth when the tree is young is a prerequisite for trees to live to a ripe old age. As people, we easily lose sight for what is truly old for a tree.”

— from The Hidden Life of Trees

If you’re neurodivergent, like me, and even if you’re not but have ever felt “behind”, you might want to befriend a tree — even whole forests. One of the most magical insights I’ve gained around forests through science is that their underground “nervous” system of fungi allows them to act as a single organism.

The alder tree graced me with a visit yesterday. Reminding me that not every bark that gets wet needs to rot. What is one tree’s strength is another one’s weakness. The symbolism of the alder tree is all about embracing everyone’s uniqueness.

There’s so much more to write here, let me just end with this today:

I hope that you are inspired to learn from trees. There’s a huge difference between learning about and from. Which mode of learning we engage is closely connected to hierarchy and domination. Embodied Learning is an inter-virtual space where I desire to co-create ways of learning with you that go beyond the dominant, extractive, scientific, hierarchical and colonial ways — a learning from those we only learn about.

Like trees.

My methodology for
this way of learning,
you ask? You guessed it.

Poe-tree.

Love,

Imọlẹ

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