Journal Entry / A Place For God

Where do you find your God?

…Years ago, I was able to create from the cavity of a place; a place of destruction, of turmoil, of loss. Now, I create from the stillness, a place of center. When I’m at emotional capacity, I’m unable to build. It’s impossible to paint, to write, to explore the insides or the outsides. Intellectualizing my way around it proves to be nonviable, and so I have learned to sit with it. And when I sit with it, my mind often wanders back here.

All photos by Lindsey

I’m not sure I feel comfortable using the term God. Why does it feel so limiting?

Source Energy? Divine? 

What form of divine energy creates the innate knowing of our heart to pump blood throughout our body? Or for the intelligence plants hold when growing towards the sun? Perhaps its a universal source found in the connection of all things.

Perhaps its the same source i discover through flow state. where else?

it’s here, in The Cathedral of the Woods. On the bark of the 3,000 year old tree. There is nothing here, fourteen miles deep in the Redwood Forest, that does not feel aligned with the divine. We walk, the four of us, silent… a pause so deep and so genuine that no silence has lingered the same since. The trees, towering some 350 feet above our head, creak and groan as they sway; a sound so loud and FOREIGN that is almost unrecognizable. How can we be so far removed? 

The trees stand, witnessing us. Centuries old, standing in solidarity– there before my birth and surely there long after I’m gone. As they should.

But perhaps the most magnificent thing about these redwoods isn’t what is above our heads. We spend so much time looking up, up, up– not from the center, not from the ground.

We walk and I look down at my feet. My hiking boots step firmly on the moss-covered ground; how below them lies an entire underground connection of magic. These redwood trees have shallow roots, only penetrating some 5 feet below the surface. The only way they’re able to hold upright at their height and power– is through the collective community. Each set of roots spreads for miles, intertwining with the network of trees surrounding them. This is the magic of the circles, of the groves. An interwoven community, held firm through divine connection. How could we have forgotten this?

And still, underground, we can go deeper, learn more. Research by ecologist Suzanne Simard proves that these trees are also social creatures. Within these communities of root systems, her work has proven these trees communicate with one another; and not only send signals, but protect and care for the weaker, younger units. This communication provides and protects for the health of the entire forest. Her work forced us to see these environments in a new light; as a way of listening.

we still have much to learn. 

The most interesting part of this research? Although we of course understand that trees do not have a brain such as ours– Simard has proven that the network in the soil and chemicals that move through it, are the same as our own neural transmitters. How have we forgotten?

What separates my body from these trees? From these spaces that are filled with ancient wisdom? Perhaps the cultural barriers we’ve constructed. The ones that tell me my body is meant for taking, for the other– that I do not have jurisdiction. The barriers that purposefully define my nude form as something separate, something shameful. My body was meant to be here. With the Gods.

There are spaces where our senses can briefly encounter a moment of what Eden looked like, smelled like, tasted like– before us. These are the places I find my center. 

The redwoods remind us of the intricacies of life. 

We step into a clearing, the light pouring from the canopies onto the subtle-red bark; moss so thick the forest floor invites you to lay on it’s carpet, maybe to never leave. As if it’s been home for centuries. 

The air smells of sweetness, a ripe sawdust. These groves of redwoods— They’ve been known to be called faerie circles, and it’s not difficult to understand why. The magic here is palpable, something you know to be true, and real, and wise. 

God? I’ve never found this in a church. 

But I have found it here.