Walking through the wetlands on a windy day, I encountered a tree growing horizontally towards a nearby stream. While the trunk stretched out sideways, many of its branches grew vertically. I was easily able to reach my hands up to grab the vertical limbs, climbing onto the trunk where my feet found a safe foothold. Amazingly I was up in a tree yet very comfortable and relaxed, my body able to stretch out and feel at home.
I felt into my connection to the tree through my arms and legs, sensing how the branches were being moved by the strong wind. As I became increasingly receptive to the energy of wind moving branches, my arms began to translate this feeling to my entire body. In let go, yet held to the tree by hands and feet, my body was danced by the wind, as the swaying branches conveyed their own experience through my hands to my body. It was as if a partner was leading me, moving my body to the rhythm of the ever changing improvisational wind.
I was both wild free child and strong sensual woman, fully interconnected with the earth and sky though wind and tree. I remembered the joy of being a child scrambling up trees, and thought of how rarely climbing a tree with their daunting verticality seemed possible nowadays. What a joy to find a horizontal tree!
My mind also flashed on the joy of dancing with a skilled partner, being guided yet improvising. Yet implausibly, in this moment, here I was, transported in joy in an impromptu dance with a very gentle tree. Swirling, swaying, wildly alive, lost and graced in the interplay of wind/tree/human embodiment.
The Nature of Us – Sabrina Page has an MA in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness, a background in movement and dance, focused on embodiment. She has been deeply influenced by her connection with nature, shaped by playing in woods and water growing up. Sabrina’s writing explores the earth community, love, body, embodiment, interconnection, our planetary moment, music – and the creativity and possibilities inherent in being human.