Have you ever climbed up in a tree and sat there for no apparent reason? I still remember the joy it brought me.

I didn’t know at the time why I had the urge to climb the tree, a mature May Flower tree whose heavy lower limbs were a good eight feet off the ground in the near by hill. It had been 19 years or so since I was in a tree for no apparent reason. Sure, to trim branches, or pick Pomegranates or Guava or install lights on a birth day or any function. – you know, for some good, sensible purpose like that. But a girl climbing into a tree just because it was there, without even a ladder for an excuse, and with no better reason than to sit a spell. How preposterous! Everybody knows tree-climbing is for innocent children especially boys who have nothing better to do with their time. Yet, with only one or two second thoughts, and with a long look around to see if anyone was watching, I did it anyway.

On the third try, I managed to drag my maturing and ground-oriented body up to the elusive bottom limbs, with a significant boost from a piece of fallen limb I placed at an angle against the trunk. Apprehensively, I glanced around again, this time to find out if anyone had seen me fall to the ground on my first two efforts. I was more than a little relieved to find no one in sight. Self-conscious? Yes, a little – one mustn’t look too silly to one’s friends and neighbors.

Actually, the chance of anyone seeing me there was small, as this tree grows on a lightly traveled hilltop at the edge of the city, in an area known as an undeveloped park, in the popular jargon. Undeveloped by man, perhaps, but it’s my opinion that nature has developed it just fine.

But back to the girl now sitting in tree: I quickly found that though the tree have about 2 limbs branching out at their base, it takes some effort for a five foot human to get really comfortable. Yet, after tying out all possible options, I finally settled for lying on my back on one of its mighty arms, a relatively flat-topped 18-inch diameter limb. With my feet resting on two other limbs on either side of the trunk, I was well anchored, lest an unexpected breeze should come along and try to blow me off my perch. To my advantage, breezes were few on this lovely on that day. Were I able to still my mind regularly as well as nature can still the air, the calmness would come easily.

Initially, this human rummaging around in a tree must have looked something like a bull in a china shop to the gray squirrel that I watched in an adjacent fir tree. For a moment, I thought I could hear the squirrel chuckling at this strange site. One thing was for sure, I was certainly the largest animal in the tree. (There were no bulls, and thankfully no bears and more thank fully no monkeys as well.) Yet I wasn’t alone by any means. It always is intriguing to me to see how much activity goes on continuously in nature – to watch a small patch of ground, or a fallen log, or in this case, a living tree, and see all the life happening. In this particular habitat, I observed ants scurrying through the moss, small hopping spiders tucked into the thick bark, frequent patrols of flies and yellow jackets, and a rather noisy lookout wood pecker or blue jay who came along to warn the rest of the forest of this interloper in its midst.

The jay needn’t have bothered, for her environment was safe from this human. I was content to be part of the tree, and certainly wasn’t into trying out flying at that moment. I felt the tree’s bark against my back, my shirt having been used as a cushion between my head and a rather large bump on the limb. I envisioned the roots, running deep into the earth, grounding me with the planet.

For a while, the tree’s skin was as my skin, its roots were my roots, its fingers my fingers. I was “one with the tree”, connected to the universe through another of its beings, content to be part of what is. In my mind’s eye, I watched the flower breathing, taking in carbon dioxide that I was exhaling, and releasing the precious oxygen that gives me life: An unseen energy loop, at least unseen by the physical eye. I wondered if most important things don’t happen beyond our ‘normal’ fields of vision – electricity, radio waves, energy from the sun, many other kinds of energy transfer … and the breathing of gulmohar tree.

Perhaps I really did become one with the tree, for the half-dozen people who walked or jogged past during my three hours there did not acknowledge my presence. Or maybe they just didn’t know what to say to a girl reclining on a tree about eight feet off the ground. If they had said anything, it probably would have been something like “How’s the weather up there?” or “You want us to call the fire department to get you down?” or “Hey, look at that nut in the tree! No, not the acorn; the other one.” Of course, I may have been surprised with a “Pardon me, Are you deep in meditation? May be I was but I couldn’t realize. Now I feel that I missed those moments where I could have enjoyed to the fullest.

When I had managed to relax again, I began to sense a group was seriously trying to get me down with the help of ropes and ladders..

I told the tree that I have always felt sorry for trees because they must stand in the same place all the time, firmly rooted where they are; so that they couldn’t go and explore the earth, as we humans can. And that I was concerned that they had to be outside enduring the weather, no matter what the conditions. It seemed like a rather difficult burden, having a life that alternated between dull and harsh.

This particular tree is, for me, a symbol of my reconnecting with nature.

So, if your harried life has you out-of-touch with what’s real; or if you’re in need of grounding; or you just need a strong, dependable friend, why don’t you ... go climb a tree? I highly recommend tree-sitting for young and old alike. You may need a ladder to get there, and even if you don’t, you can always take one along for your self-consciousness, to be more within your comfort zone. That way, any of your neighbors who are yet to rediscover tree-sitting will think you’re up there pruning, or fulfilling some other practical purpose.

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Source: Internet and personal experience