Thank you for a magical journey of adventure, Master OG (old growth) connection, forest and mossy green reverie! Thank you for Hoh River play, earthgym training and taichi merging with the flowing, swirling, gushing blue/gray glacial waters and the ever rising, expanding mist of the majestic Misty Mountains. I LOVE coming Hohme to the Hoh Rainforest and the Land of OM (Olympic Mountains)! This was my first time back since June to share these sacred training, musing lands with my fiancé, Nate. I have traveled to these enchanted lands many times to train with Mick Dodge and many in our Earthgym clan and I have many favorite forest spots I visit each time I journey West. While Google may say it’s a 4 hour journey Hohme, it always takes me at least 7 hours…as I stop to greet and meet and LOVE the rivers, skies and Big Trees! There are many portals and once I step through with a bow, a kiss, a “Yoish” to our friendly giants, I enter a timeless place, a Narnia Nature land, our Enchanted Middle Earth.
Nate and I share a huge love of Trees and Qigong (both having practiced and studied over 20 years now), and to visit and train with these verdant, lush forests with huge old growth Douglas Firs, Cedars, Hemlocks and Spruce and giant moss-adorned big leaf maples was truly magical. As we entered one of the forests I dearly love and visit often, passing through a gateway of 2 giant Dougfirs, we came upon an grandfather Master OG fir. In silence and reverence we approached. Asking permission, we listened and then lay our hands upon its massive trunk. I closed my eyes and immediately felt a surge of energy, light, a pillar of Qi flowing strong, flowing upwards into the sky. I also felt a more subtle but deeply strong flow down — a web of qi, information, wisdom love reaching out through the forest floor, across the mountains and valleys, listening, knowing, communing with its kin, its family of forests across these lands. This Tree holds so much. It is a Teacher, for us, for its forest kin, sending energy, information up, up into the sky, and out through the soil ground. It also holds a sadness a grief, so many of its kin are gone, have been cut…
The Land of OM in its magic and glory of our protected Wild Lands, also is a land of many contradictions. The Olympic National Forest is in many respects sold to the logging industry. So many of the big trees are gone, whole mountains sides bulldozed and the forest destroyed, cut like a razor leaving bald desolation and grief in the few scattered remaining lonely trees in these stump lands. Why?! There are other ways, responsible, sustainable ways to love, nurture and care take our land and resources. These mass clear cutting ways hold a total disrespect and irreverence for Life, for Beauty, for the inherent perfection and interdependence of our healthy ecosystems. There are other ways — for as humans we hold a covenant with the Lands, whether we’re conscious of it or not, to care take these lands, both physically and spiritually. And as we do, and as we give thanks and hold prayers, rituals to honor our lands, waters, mountains, wildlife, mother earth, we do our part in replenishing the Creation. Many people and countries are waking up/remembering ways of consciously using, replenishing our resources. This is one inspiring article of a German man who is redefining forestry….helping create, sustain, protect healthy forests while also harvesting in a sustainable way.
Trees are givers. Constantly giving to us all. They give us oxygen, shelter, shade from the hot sun, wood to build our homes, wind to drawn in the rain clouds and clean the air, beauty to inspire and nourish our souls, teachings on strength, stillness, patience, rootedness and timelessness, roots that hold our mountains together and soak up flooding waters, medicine for coughs and colds from their needles, shelter for birds, animals, insects, magical forests to play in, explore in, rest in, bathe our Souls in. So much!!! One of the Master OG cedar trees I also visited seemed to draw me in. My face completely buried in the abundant soft moist moss on her bark. She drew me in close, bathing me in gentle yet strong qi, like a Grandmother Queen, and whispered to come and come often. Come often to visit, to train, to muse and be with our Tree elders. They have so much to share and it’s so important for us to listen, receive.
When overcome with grief while traveling through some of the clear cuts, I remembered what I felt from the Earth this summer when hiking in the dry mountains and feeling the grief of the dried up tarns and streams, She clearly said, “Care. Share. Do not Despair.”
So I Care and I Share with you all because I so LOVE our beloved Forests and Mountains and Wild river waters! Thank you for receiving this sharing and for your Caring! May you enjoy these many pics — from our adventures at Rialto Beach, our explorations and training in the magical Hoh Rainforest, and a most awesome hike up Storm King Mountain at Lake Crescent…just one year since my first hike up this dear mountain with my beloved Earthgym Tree Sister Danielle! On our journey we also had a most awesome gathering with Mick Dodge at his Land of OM hohme (see the pics of his cool round house!! A real Hobbit home..or Habbit really, as we are all Habbits of the Share :-P). It was a great gathering – a couple from Iowa so inspired by Mick, came out to host a dinner and offer a significant donation to help us open and start a Hoh Dojo training center and visitor camp! So many friends, many elders, and people from the Quillayute tribe gathered to celebrate.
