In this episode of ‘5 Minutes,’ Dr. Robert Svoboda explores communing with trees and how quiet presence can help us develop a deeper relationship with other forms of life.

I am on location, out-of-doors, and I am pleased to introduce you to this fine tree, who is going to be my assistant in this experience. Today is actually kind of a book report as well, a book report on a book called Kinship with All Life by J. Allen Boone. It’s a book that I believe everyone should read. Mr. Boone was a scriptwriter about a hundred years ago, and he had a very interesting experience with Strongheart, the most famous dog movie star of that time. Read the book and you will enjoy it. The basis of the book is that Mr. Boone said you can learn to get into an alignment with other forms of life, and when you are in that alignment, you can communicate in a particular kind of non-verbal way with those other forms of life. Mr. Boone was very fortunate because Strongheart actually taught him to do this. He made friends with Strongheart, then he made friends with other animals. He even became friendly with a housefly, which he named Freddie.

Anyone can learn to do this. The advantage of having this fine tree as my assistant today is that this tree is not moving like a fly or a dog or another animal would. Also, it is a tree that I have come to know relatively well, a tree with which I have become friendly. Many of my best friends in the world are trees. I like to spend time with the tree, not thinking about the tree, not thinking about what I could take from the tree if I was hugging it and enjoying all of its energy, not thinking what I could do with the tree, but simply being with the tree and enjoying its presence. It seems to me that this tree also enjoys my presence. I find that the easiest way for me to align with this tree, or with any tree, and to get to know it is simply to allow my mind to become quiet and to remove from my mind anything that is not “tree.”

Once you remove everything that is not tree, whatever is left over is tree, and then tree on the inside can interact with tree on the outside, and there can be a pleasant experience of simply being. When doing this, it is useful to stand and be as still as possible because that’s what a tree does. The tree is standing. It doesn’t walk around like we do. It is pulling up water from the earth. We can envision that if we like. It’s bringing down heat and light from the sun. So there is this upward movement of juice from below, and there is this downward movement of energy and awareness from above, kind of like what happens in a human being. So, in fact, we can assist ourselves to circulate our own energy and our own juice in a positive way by being associated with things like trees.

I have found that some trees are easier to communicate with than others. Some trees are more interested in communicating with others, and of course, in addition to trees, as you can see, there are a number of other plants around you that you can communicate with. Trees have a certain enhanced quality of presence. As you know, humans are much more individualized than most other forms of life. A tree is more a representative of its species than it is a particular individual, though every tree is also an individual, and like every other individual, it has grown in a particular way, manifested from particular soil and climatic conditions. Very possibly there is a tree nearby to where you are. If so, I encourage you to go out and become friendly with this tree, get to know it, let the tree know that you appreciate it, and see in what way you and the tree can enter into a friendly relationship.