Tree Medicine - The Piñon + Juniper Forest
People crave the bigness of trees. I crave the bigness of trees. Trees have a very particular and special medicine to offer us that is quite different from the flowers and vines and shrubs. The bigness of their size and the ancientness of their souls bestows upon them a quality we can’t quite describe or touch, no matter how hard we try.
Some of our trees are not so grand as the looming pines and magical firs. For these other trees, their majesty seems to emanate from their toughness, endurance, and ability to be shaped by the forces they endure rather than broken by them.
I think of Piñon and Juniper, Grandfather and Grandmother Forest, when I think of trees of this nature. And I love them.
Since I moved to the White Mountains of Arizona, it is the Ponderosa who calm my nervous system more than any other. But it is Juniper and Piñon, my tree grandparents, who teach me that I can do hard things, who show my ability to me, and who gift me with wisdom when I have earned the right to receive it.
They grow in windy, rocky, red clay land, sometimes near Ponderosa, but sometimes just the two them, for vast, bewildering stretches.
It is easy to get turned around in these forests…to lose your senses as the entwined Junipers and Piñons come to life and want to teach you to keep your head on straight.
Often when I wander through these forests I feel the fey and Old Man Coyote and something like the Little People who dominate Rhododendron forests of my home state, must be afoot - enchanting me further into depths from which I may not ever find my way out. All the while Juniper and Piñon watch me. They watch every step, and if I pay attention, I can hear them nudging me. Directing me. Not with detailed instructions, but directing me inward. Back to me. To my gut. My intuition.
Every time, I find my way.
One time I took a student out to my favorite grove, and we hiked about a mile into the forest off a dirt road. We set our belongings down as I gave a lesson on the medicine of these trees, on ethical harvest of the resins and leaves, and how to make a wand for smoke clearing. When it was time to sit with our work and connect deeply wit the land and our craft, I realized I had no idea where our packs were. Not only was I disoriented and confused, I was responsible for another human who had entrusted me with her safety.
I had a momentary lapse of calm and an internal freak out, while trying to remain calm and my years of wilderness first aid training. She was unaffected...suggesting the fairies were messing with us, which turned out to be a huge blessing. She had no idea what could have gone wrong.
I took a moment, told her to stay put, and looked at the trees. They didn’t tell me what to do. But they DID remind that I knew what to do. That I had it inside of me to remedy this…As if they used real words. But the language of trees goes straight to the heart and your mind has little to do with what you hear. I truly felt that my grandparents, who watched me grow and learn, who knew everything I was capable of, were encouraging me. Letting me discover for myself, letting me learn some valuable, almost terrifying lessons, and also allowing me to feel the powerful reward of problem solving.
Calling to my student every little while to make sure I didn’t lose her too, I came up with a plan to try and retrace our steps into the forest. Successfully I found the place where we began, and I found our stuff, and she was able to follow my voice to me. It was WILD.
Juniper and Piñon have guided me in this way since I moved to the mountain. I love all the variety of forests up here. I live in the largest contiguous Ponderosa forest in the United States, and we have dashes of high elevation Spruce-Fir forests and swaths of red earth covered with the deep green of Juniper and Pinon (often called P&J Forest). I go to each for something different, and til recently it’s been purely guided by intuition. As I’ve had these experiences over and over, I’ve come to learn what my relationship is with each tree…and what I think each tree has to teach us, as its own archetype.
Each and all of the plant communities have so very much on offer to us, if we only take the time to listen, to be in communion with them. If you have nothing to offer in return, Earth, Trees, Flowering plants…they will receive your tears. They will receive your song. Your prayer, your desire, your need.
I refuse to make the anthropocentric claim that plants love to give their lives for us. I don’t know them that well, and I don’t want to make assumptions. I just know that sometimes we have to take life in order to live, and that is the nature of living. We all depend on death in some way. I don’t know what the true thoughts of trees and all plants are. I don’t know what they want from us in exchange beyond what I have picked up on. And they are all different, they are individuals, the same as we are all different and individuals.
But I do know this. If you listen, if you want to listen, and if you try to listen, clearing out everything you want to be true and allowing what IS to come forth, they CAN reach you. They WANT to teach you, because they are our elders. And they WILL speak to you, if only you will be still, and Listen.
More Tree Medicine in the Rebel Herbal World...