The Gift of Living What Doesn’t Make Sense

Something quite mysterious happened deep in the forest yesterday, which I did not expect and which blew my mind. Now, I’m telling you because I don’t think what happened was meant just for me. I believe it might have been for your benefit too. I was there because I had a question burning in my heart. But you might have had the same question or one that equally burns in your heart. I wanted to give my question to the forest, to whatever tree I felt drawn to. My hope was that the forest would answer me whenever it was ready. Come with me, and you’ll see what took place…

It’s Saturday morning. The chill of the air spreads thin across my cheeks, the sun streaking out from behind the grey in a bid to warm trunks of mahogany, bone, and silver. Surefooted, I tread inside the silence of forest eavesdropping, a dank mulch of leaves cushioning the way.

Breaking my reverie, a rainbow lorikeet in hiding, pierces the atmosphere with brightness and gusto. I smile and take a few steps further before its peeping becomes louder and more insistent. That’s when I realise I am being called – called to an unseen tree deeper within the forest. I hesitate, tune in to the direction of the sound, and then venture off of the path. The destination is unclear, the route there non-existent. Clambering over rocks and deadened logs, cracking strewn branches underfoot and sidestepping the prickles of yellow gorse, I arrive at a boulder in front of a blackened tree rooted in the centre of a glen. I catch my breath. In shyness, I say hello to my elusive feathered friend, and its host. The lorikeet hushes from beyond its leaves. And, though the tree introduces itself with rustles and creaks as the wind picks up, it too offers nothing further. I wait.

My shoulders drop in disappointment. Frowning, I wonder why THIS tree?

It made no sense.

Puzzled, I wonder why its trunk and first branches are charred to a crisp as if by fire, when all the other trees are fine.

It made no sense. 

I scan the lines of its twisted stance; tracing the gnarled branches and the joints with their overgrowth of cankers; observing its skin, all peeling and parched and splitting and brittle; those thorns thrusting up from along its arms, and the spears sticking out of the stump-ends of some of those arms. Why has it grown this way when there is no competition around it for space or light?

That too, made no sense.

After a while, I feel it is time to submit my burning question that I came into the forest with, a question concerning how best to lead in my professional life. I write it down on a perfect shard of bark I find at the foot of a neighbouring tree. As I bury my request under the leaves on the ground between the ebony tree and the succulence of a sapling beside it, I hope the forest will accept it. I draw close to my tree, place my hands on the roughness of its crumbling and incinerated bark. Within seconds my palms tingle and I thrill at this new and “unseen” connection. Standing still like this, my breath enlivening a myriad tiny ants all exploring the land of my fingers, I become oblivious to time.

When I do leave and return to the main path, my head is empty. I am not thinking anything, just stepping one foot in front of the other, happy, and “in no sense’’.

Within two minutes, I’m LOST.

Dumbfounded, I try to compute. How have I come off the main path and found myself on a trail I never knew existed? I look around me. How can the forest have changed like this? As if someone has moved a chunk of it? A slurry of disorientation displaces the emptiness in my head. Never have I lost my way in this forest! Befuddled, I decide to keep walking, my steps slowing in pace with my attempts to work it all out. Within a minute though, I have to laugh out loud. Emerging from a bend in the trail, I am greeted by a most magnificent panorama: the ocean, in all her glitter and sapphire! The bracing wind flaps at my hair in play as I gasp in delight. From out of nowhere, two walkers in all the gear and yellow bobble-hats, appear right behind me. Still amused, I explain to them that I got lost, and how bizarre that was.

“Oh! Are you OK with where you are?’’ the woman asks me, with concern in her voice.

“’Oh YES! I am more than OK with it!” I grin, “I’ve been with a tree for an hour or so. I think that might have had something to do with it! I’ve never seen this vista from this particular viewpoint! It’s amazing!”

As the walkers bid me farewell and carry on, I can’t wipe the grin off my face. Suddenly, being in no sense is starting to make deep sense in my heart.

Tree and forest had known all along! From the minute I was called, and probably even before (because after all, Nature lives in the constancy of its all-knowing, all-at-once state), they had already known my burning question and had begun answering it from the get go.

In the most magical of ways, they had showed me that oftentimes we need to let go of what we think makes sense, let go of what should make more sense, and let go of trying to figure out stuff with our minds all the time. For when we do that and be open-hearted, we enter a far richer reality: the state of not-knowing, of being ‘’in no sense” or innocence, in flow, fully connected to all things at once, able to receive what we “inherently know” outside of mind, pure aliveness.

Tree and forest had revealed that the best way to show up and serve in our worlds is by becoming “lost” to our conditioned and habitual ways of doing and perceiving things.

That when we commune with and are guided by something far more expansive than the predictability and limitations of living only from mind, we can receive what is best and true for us and the highest good of all.

What a gift to receive this reminder – about the courage to follow the nudges and leave the clear-cut path, for one that offers mystery and surprise! That when we fully give ourselves to the mystery of the forest within us and the forest outside of us, we can trust our steps will be guided by a wildness and intuition and instinct that deliver us to the best outcomes and indeed, ones that can blow our mind. Outcomes such as alliances with like-minded people, a fresher perspective, and the fullness of moments that enhance our lives.

I smiled all the way home.

Even now, as I type this Note, I trust that the dank mulch of leaves in the forest continues to hold my question and help show me the way.

Invitation: Thank you for sharing in my adventure! I would LOVE it if you shared your Note today with one person you think would benefit from reading it, and invite them to sign up. And feel free to share in your networks too. As always, I look forward to chatting with you about your thoughts on my topic today, so drop me a line.

I’ll make up a bite to eat.

Looking forward to writing back to your mail

love Caroline xx