Tree

A while ago—as I often feel restless and have a lot of racing thoughts and feelings inside of me—I started meditating every evening; and as I am quite new to this and need a lot of guidance, I started using a guided meditation video someone recommended to me. In the beginning of the sequence, the voice asks you to recall the image of a tree that helps you to ground yourself (in the soil) while also reaching upwards (to the sunlight). While mediating is generally hard for me, picking the tree came very easy to me. Immediately, a particular, very special, tree came to my mind that I discovered a few years ago, tucked in between a few housing blocks, close to my former apartment (which used to be a hotel in the 1950s and had beautiful yellow tiles in the bathroom) in Westwood Village, Los Angeles; where I lived when the curfews started during the pandemic. Almost every sunny day, I sat at a bench close to this particularly majestic and beautiful tree, which was surrounded by some greenery that made it almost appear like a tiny park. Often, people were sitting on the giant, exposed roots of the tree, hiding from the hot Californian sun, engaging in conversations and enjoying some snacks. I came there mostly by myself, just to relax, at that time I was reading the book The Passion of the Western Mind:Understanding the Ideas that Have Shaped Our World View (by Richard Tarnas) with a dear friend of mine who had escaped from LA back to Europe before the curfews started, and I was generally feeling as if I was loosing connection to many people and places; this tree, nevertheless, gave me solace. Usually, I just sat there looking at the tree and how the sun was gently piercing through the tree branches onto grass. I also watched the countless fluffy squirrels and birds populating the place, and I had made it my habit to bring some nuts with me, so that I could feed the animals. It was a pleasure to see, how the squirrels, once they were full, were digging little holes in the ground to hide the nuts (for the winter supposedly), but the moment they left a bird came and picked the nut out of the ground with their long beaks; what a scenery! I think without knowing, I had started a form of meditation—or at least my longing for mindfulness manifested—during those days in California, and I am thankful to be able recall these days of slowing down…

For anyone who wants to start mediating but has no clue how like me, here is the link to the video I use (thanks to Robert Eric Dinenberg from Human Longevity for uploading).