unshaming needing each other with trees as our teachers

next inner poet calling session: december 15, 2024 🍂

For the next few days I’ll be sharing what I’m learning from trees about interdependence. That’ll also be our theme in the next Inner Poet Calling group session. See/feel you there!

“The reasons trees share food and communicate is that they need each other. It takes a forest to make a microclimate suitable for tree growth and sustenance. So it’s not surprising that isolated trees have far shorter lives than those living connected together in forests. Perhaps the saddest plants of all are those we have enslaved in our agricultural systems. They seem to have lost the ability to communicate.” — Foreword from “The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World”

There’s so much that is stirred up inside of me from just this passage. I dare to look at it more like a poem and less like a scientific “discovery”. Trees have been enslaved by us. Not often in my day-to-day do I pause to acknowledge this. Another large-scale injustice I’ve been unaware of. Trees cannot flee. Trees cannot run away. They are forever rooted to the land that gave birth to them. Someone who might read this book for merely scientific and entertainment purposes, might also not pause and feel into what this sentence entails. The reason I’ve chosen not to quote the author is because I don’t want to give this individual too much credit for a knowledge that is indigenous.

Tree Wisdom of Today:

We need each other.

Tree Wisdom of Tomorrow:

We need each other.

Tree Wisdom of Forever:

We need each other.

What is it that lies hidden within a poem to rise only when the initiate calls?

— A question from “The Celtic Tree Oracle: A System of Divination”

Every session I’ve been able to host has been deeply poetic. I believe that poems are portals to the Divine. They carry so much wisdom, because we do. Each one of us. When we no longer put modern rationality above embodied wisdom, we free ourselves from the need “to be good” and “to be right”. I hold sacred space in these sessions where everything that flows out of our bodies — very often it may be through our pens but that is not a requirement — is welcome. We stay curious. We don’t judge. It — the wisdom — has come to visit us. Let’s say hi and let’s go deeper. Our most random ideas are most of the time the most sincere. It’s what we suppress that has the most potential to free us. If you’re someone who feels lost scrolling through social media and who cares about dismantling systems of oppression, poems could be your way forward too. Tapping into a poetic realm of existence means creating not just from what has been but creating what could be. Poems can be imagination trees.

On my trip to a retreat in the UK, I felt really drawn to this Celtic tree oracle deck. It’s probably because of an inner yearning to connect more to nature. I honor that as a Nigerian-Austrian, I probably don’t have Celtic ancestry. Our only common ancestors might have been the trees. (Oh, wrong, I just researched and Austria was a part of the wider Celtic world, especially also in the Upper Austrian region where my mother is from. Surprise! Hm… That might curiously explain why I felt so drawn to this. The images felt so nostalgic to me.) Today I kept drawing the Yew card, amongst others. It stands for death and rebirth. The vine card stands for prophecy and truthful speaking. Last but not least, in this drawing the honeysuckle appeared. According to the Ogham Symbol Gallery: “It is the flower of unspoken desire, hidden needs, secret wants, but it also represents our goals of finding our true Self.”

So… I’m delving into tree knowledge because this is what my body is calling me to do. Moreover, I’m allowing the trees around me to be my friends and teachers. I’ve been craving their companionship and to deepen our connection. In my last podcast episode on protest as a spectrum, I spoke about how my gender feels like a tree sometimes. Afterwards, I couldn’t help but feel a bit embarrassed. This might come across as quite strange. In retrospect, it sounded strange even to myself.

Nonetheless, I recently had this epiphany that as a so-called writer — that’s what I call myself on moonlit days, and, a poem and prose hosted by a body, on sunshadowed ones — it is my “job” to go to these strange places. It’s literally part of my existence description — and yes, yours too. I’m not here to be easily understood. I’m not here to present you with a veneer of perfection. I’m here to let you know that anxiety, embarrasment, fear, anger and estrangement are all part of the tapestry of our lives. Let’s embrace it as if our emotions are a microclimate of trees that all need each other.

If there’s any part of you whispering to be in embodied community with me and other magical beings, do sign up for my sessions. I also offer free spots. I’m not going to reject you for lack of funds. I’ve been struggling to invite people and to share about these sessions in different spaces that I’m a part of, although some of them literally exist for this very specific purpose. I still have so many stories that make me feel like sharing about my sessions might come across as being a burden or trying to take advantage of others. So, a part of me would rather hide and do this alone, than tap into all the communal ways I could be supported. I am surrounded by and have been mentored by truly inspiring people, yet I struggle to ask them to collaborate with me. Asking my inner poet what to do about this block, they told me to listen to the trees. So, that’s what I’m doing. The truth is: I need you. Like trees need each other. I no longer want to carry all this shame around this truth. I want to communicate shamelessly as if shame has been scared away by my scent warning others of its dangers. Learning how trees communicate you will understand: It is namely through scent. I want to freely express my needs, not with the expectation of others to rescue me, but the trust that: I’m also needed by the ecosystem I’m a part of.

Love,

Imọlẹ

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