For years on the way to my son’s bus stop we’d pass this one tree…
Something about it’s iconic shape and isolated composition grabbed me and made me take notice — which, at 6:30am before I’ve wiped dreams fully from my eyes — is really saying something.
I started snapping a photo almost every day, not sure why.
Without meaning to, I gathered a collection.
And the collection became a chronicle in itself. Time. Light. Seasons. Tracking the movement of sunrise.
The same tree stood by, day after day, as though waiting for my little moment of attention, breathing, rooted where she stood, using chlorophyll to convert light to sugar and converting carbon to oxygen. She was steadfast and brilliant under all manners of Colorado skies, hail, rain, snow, spring wind and blazing sunshine.
I looked forward to seeing her every day, and she became part of me.
The photos became a source of inspiration and grounding, and especially now that I’ve moved to a different home, integral to my memory of those years.
Good Foot Prompt:
Visual collections are a fascinating way to track change, observe growth, learn about movements of light in our environment or simply appreciate the beautiful passing of cycles. The very nature of checking in through an artful ritual invites us into the present (in the creation or capture), even while we’re speaking to past and future.
And best of all, they’re ridiculously easy to gather with a smartphone.
If you’re curious to try here are a few tips:
Pick something in your surroundings that undergoes subtle change, be it hourly, daily or seasonally. It could be anything — a plant, a tree, a spot outside where you walk your dog every day, a corner in your house where light moves throughout the day and year.
Come up with a thoughtful frame of your subject — try to isolate it in a simple composition by removing distractions and allowing it to fill most of the frame.
Now, decide on a time to track (every day, hour, week, month or whatever feels interesting), and then snap a photo of it at the same time per your rules.
Once you have gathered the imagery, have fun with it. I have put collections in time-lapse videos, used layout editors or photoshop to make collages. You could even print the images and make an old fashioned flip-book.
Speaking of which, if you’ve read Richard Powers’ OVERSTORY, this might sound familiar. The book opens with a sequence of a family who documented one of the only chestnut trees to survive a country-wide blight in the early 1900s. Over 75 years and three consecutive generations, a member of the Hoel family photographs the same tree on the 21st of every month, no matter the weather. The eventual series of striking black-and-white prints lives and breathes. As Powers tells it, the collection documents the history of not just the chestnut tree, but marks the passing of family members, world wars, marriages, divorces and births. The heirloom collection of prints essentially inspires the rest of the book. And the book is bloody brilliant (if you haven’t read it — I highly recommend).
The takeaway? Collections can acquire a life of their own. Greater than the sum of their parts, they can have power unforeseeable at the outset. That’s what makes them so satisfying.
And now, I’m going to share a tangential bonus that may very well have been gifted to me from my obsession with that tree…
The Gift:
I don’t know about you, but I don’t meditate nearly as much as I’d like to. Quieting my mind to focus around a mantra doesn’t come easily.
But one of those rare days when I did settle enough to at least try, something cool happened — possibly as a result of my obsession with that lone tree. In an attempt to wrangle the wild landscape of my thoughts, I stumbled upon (seriously, I was not looking for this, it just dropped in on me like a gift) the following.
There’s no other way to say this so, here goes: I became a tree.
Not necessarily a specific tree. In fact the tree I visualize often changes to match my mood. Sometimes I’m a tiny aspen sprig and others a giant sequoia.
Anyway that first day, I surrendered to this essential tree-ness, my spine lengthened like a trunk and without effort, my breath fell in line with the following elemental mantra.
Sit comfortably, relax your forehead and shoulders, picture your inner tree-self — both rooted to the ground and reaching for the sky (I know it sounds ridiculous but trust me for just a moment), and here it is:
INHALE : visualize WATER — imagine nutrients surging up through your tree roots
EXHALE : visualize AIR — imagine your exhale as the oxygen a tree off-gasses through it's foliage
INHALE : visualize FIRE (sunlight) — imagine absorbing warm sunlight through your canopy
EXHALE : visualize EARTH — imagine roots slowly grounding you, expanding deep into the earth beneath your feet
Repeat.
And when you’re ready, try the set with your eyes closed.
I made this handy poster so you can look at something pretty — an actual tree — while you start your practice:
(full disclosure: I’m absolutely *not* trained as a meditation practitioner or instructor. This visualization felt like a gift that I’m compelled to share… think of it as a simple four-count breathing exercise if you don’t think of yourself as a “meditator.”)
I’ve called upon this mantra for years since. It never fails to calm and ground me — while being simultaneously energizing. And I love how the visualizations move up and down with the breath, in and out.
I hope it brings some grounded inspiration to you.
Until next time… cheers to leaving footprints of creativity, not carbon!
Beautiful, thank you for your generous gift of presence and imagination. I am a tree lover myself and a meditator who CAN sit for long periods of time and I also use visualizations as ways in to the body, breath and moment. A writer working on a memoir called Touching Wood, I am in the midst of setting up my first Substack and seeking inspiration. Thanks for being that!!!