Ancient Strength

Natures Invitation is Generous and Abundant

I am a barefooter!
For most of my life, I have walked barefoot on the earth—on the grass, the sand, and on the hot pavement. I like it that way. Shoes not so much!

Each day grants us the beautiful opportunity to pause, to notice, to open the door to the natural world and its quiet, steadfast wisdom. To step into the exquisite magnificence of creation itself. What a blessing!

I’m a tree-hugger, too. I feel their essence, and I’m certain they feel me in return.

Sitting beside a tree, I sense the textured roughness of its bark pressing into the back of my body. That sensation supports me, holding me with steadiness. I feel its stability, its ancient strength, like an unspoken prayer whispered through wood and time. And if I let my thoughts drift downward, I begin to follow the line of its roots, down into the dark, generous soil. The richness beneath the surface is alive with organisms, decay, and transformation, offering everything this grand tree needs to grow.

As I lift my gaze upward, there is a dance of light. The sun filters through the leaves, casting delicate shadows in a display of contrast—light and dark entwined like lovers. Each leaf reveals itself in a different shape, its own fingerprint of being. No two are the same, yet together they shimmer in a shared canopy. In this mosaic of green and gold, something in me opens. I feel at one.

The vastness of this world wraps around me—the blue sky above, soft and infinite, pulsing with a kind of electric hush. The golden glow of sunlight touches my skin, not just warming it, but kissing it with blessings. And in that moment, without striving or seeking, bliss arrives. Simply… here, now

Poem:

sit with me

sit with me,
said the tree,
not with words,
but with the hush of bark
against your back.

feel my skin,
rough as time,
marked by wind’s old melody,
and a thousand silent mornings.

root your spine in mine.

~ Lulu Trevena

photo by me: Muir Woods National Monument CA