"Talk with us, dance with us" is a statement was given to me by a circle of ancient Redwoods in Northern California. I was rather taken aback. I had not been trying to communicate. I was just beaming Reiki to them while sitting on a log (once one of them) appreciating their magnificence. Did they know that I am a dancer? These giants have a feminine aspect to their being with a group consciousness that strongly informs their attitude toward the Earth. Did they know I was giving them Reiki? Colorado Ponderosa Pine on the other hand tend to be loners with a distinctly male presence. Tree "personalities" are not all alike.

When I say female and male I am referring to the yin-yang energy balance that sustains the energy of the tree and is strengthened by Reiki. Shamanic healing, as practiced by the Druids, has perhaps our strongest ancient tradition based upon the energy of the tree. Reiki healing energy work communicates an ebb and flow of high vibration - a way to allow the correct balance Just for Today. Together, they can be a powerful combination.

Some may say it is sheer fantasy to think that communication with trees is possible, let alone that they beam specific messages to us. I had already experienced the gentle knowing-ness that came from plants into my awareness while growing medicinal herbs in the rocky soil of Northern New England. Yet the trees really speak in actual thought-phrases. How they formulate concepts and how they communicate is different depending on the species. I never would have believed how different! As I traveled up the California, Oregon and Washington coast two years ago gathering information for my upcoming book on Trees, gifts were bestowed upon me by trees of many species. Below is a brief excerpt from one of these encounters.

"I reach Lake Quinault, the home of the oldest living Western Red Cedar in North America, just as I am to do a shamanic journey with Robin Meyers, a wonderful healer. I'm always a little disoriented in some ways after shamanic work, and operating on this other level of awareness I conceive the idea to visit the Cedar Being. Of course it is raining, and as I make my way through the rain forest I lose my way, so to speak. Fairy light filters through the high canopy. Contemplating which way to go, under dripping moss and covered with mud after being tripped by roots a small white dog appears. Clean and cheerful, she has not a drop of mud on her! She informs me her name is Jenny, and she keeps pace with me never leaving my side as I slip and slide up and down embankments, until I discover the path and find the tree.

This Old One, with strangely scraggled roots of ancient origin doesn't seem that vital, and it is even difficult to say if he is actually alive. But when I put my hands on him, he speaks immediately. Actually, he sings, and the song stays in my mind long enough for me to notate it hours later. I do not have a good memory, so clearly the mantra has entered my subconscious along with his name in another language that I suspect is native to the peoples who inhabited these woods long ago.

Later I am able to return the favor to Jenny who now is the one who is lost. I find her waiting at the base of the trail. As I cross the road, she trots alongside safety. Turns out she belongs to someone in the area and she had crossed the road and not come home that day. It is not as though there weren't other people walking that trail and crossing that road all day, mind you. As I notice the relationship we have formed, it comes to me that I am not alone, not lost. I have only altered my path, crossed into another dimension, and come back changed in some way."

Trees speak that self-same message. They tell us about resilience and surviva and resilience. For those like myself who bemoan the depredation of the Earth, they are a constant reminder of the great Buddhist wheel of life, Sansara, in which everything and everyone is created and destroyed, over and over. There is always hope.