Marie-Claire’s Reading Room

The Tree That Talked
By Jenny Smedley

 
a Book Review by Marie-Claire Wilson

Jenny Smedley, columnist and writer, has been a guest speaker on hundreds of radio and TV shows worldwide. She is the author of Past Life Angels and Soul’s don’t lie. Her new book, The Tree That Talked, is beautiful.

Whenever trees are the subject, they evoke the most beautiful and majestic images in our minds.  Trees are the essential part of the overall grand beauty of nature in general. They also stir within our emotional responses, feelings of wisdom and protection. Spiritually, trees are in perpetual ascension toward the heavens. As vertical beings, they are the symbol of upright morals and steadfastness.

Trees have the universal symbolism of life itself, as in “the tree of life,” which is a tradition in so many global cultures across the world - even in ancient times.  There is good reason for this.  As you may know, trees outlive everything else.  Some current species recently have been proven to live to astonishing ages of tens of thousands of years.  Tree species, now extinct, may have lived even longer than that. 

Going beyond the symbolism of the tree of life, some cultures, both ancient and current, consider trees sacred.  Druids are the best known culture to revere trees, but many other cultures have held the tree in a position of high esteem, and many today still do.  It’s easy to imagine why this is true when we think of the grandiose trees such as the Giant Sequoias in northern California and some of the tree species that live thousands of years such as those found in New Zealand and other parts of the world.

Likewise, the color green, largely represented by trees, symbolizes life, health, and even prosperity.  We all learned in grammar school about how trees breathe in carbon dioxide and convert it into oxygen as all green plants do, but trees are the most important.  They give us oxygen on the largest scale to provide for animal life.  Without tress on this lovely planet Earth, we literally could not breathe, could not live. Along with their ability to provide vast amounts of oxygen, they also “clean” the air of a major source of the planet’s pollution by using the carbon dioxide to make oxygen. It’s a perfect relationship that we and other animal life have with trees.

The tree is an important symbol not just of life, but also significantly representing life, death, and reincarnation. This is found in many spiritual beliefs, including Christianity. Perhaps this came from the olive tree, which can apparently die for many years, even decades, for example during droughts, and then spring to life again when the conditions are right.  Some trees can be pruned, and the apparently dead twiggy branches stuck in the ground sprout life. There are many amazing facts about the life cycles of trees, so life and rebirth are founded in truth.
Jenny Smedley writes with such love for trees and about her spiritual connection to them. For her, as for many cultures, the strength and protection elements of trees represent not just the symbolisms already discussed, but also the entire cosmos. For her, the upright, circular trunk is like Earth, and the ethereal leaves that disperse through the skies, like the other galaxies.  Here’s a sample of part of a picturesque description of an oak that she writes:

“The oak tree was well into its prime in the year of 1896.  It was two hundred and nine years old and one hundred and forty feet high. It had a mighty girth that would have taken several men to encircle it.  It was a king among the undergrowth of brambles and fern that had now sprouted around it, and the mulch from its fallen leaves over the years had prevented anything growing too close to be able to steal water or nutrients from it.  One day it could have a forest around it, too.  By now, the tree had a massive canopy, which provided dappled shade for any animal that sought it.”

There is an old Celtic ritual for how to regain harmony in your life by “communing” with a tree.  First, choose a tree that you like.  Then talk to it, out loud or by using your intuition only, touch it as if it were an old friend, then walk clockwise around it three times.  It’s also recommended to chant, out loud or silently, an invocation dedicated to the spiritual light that imbues everything.

Trees are the nobility of nature. When I read this book, I was overcome by an optimistic sense of eternal life.  The descriptions carried me away by the evocative beauty of trees.  It also touched me deep in my heart as it will yours.  I highly recommend this book.

Marie-Claire

Marie-Claire Wilson, author of The Spiritual Tarot: The Keys to The Divine Temple, is a bilingual writer and poet. She has been a practicing medium for 28 years using direct clairvoyance, the Tarot, numerology and palmistry. Office in Washington DC. To make an appointment for a phone reading call toll-free: 1-877-847-7330. 
 
Click here to visit my web site   www.marie-claire.tv

 
Click here to link to Oracle 20/20 where article is published.

Free Ralph: An Evolutionary Fable
by Stephen Wing  

a Book Review by Marie-Claire Wilson

Stephen Wing gave up a 12 years career as a hitchhiker in 1990 when he met his wife, Dawn Aura, and settled in Atlanta. He now works as a newsletter editor and recycling coordinator at New Leaf Distributing Co., a wholesale distributor of metaphysical and holistic literature. He is a senior editor of New Leaf’s magazine Evolve!

A lifelong writer, he is the author of Four-Wheeler & Two Leffed: Poems. Wing has served a variety of causes as a writer, editor, and activist. Some current projects are “Earth Poetry with Stephen Wing”, an ecologically themed poetry presentation: Gaia-Love Graffiti, a collection of original bumper stickers www.GaiaLoveGraffiti.com and interfaith celebration of the Solstices and Equinoxes in Atlanta. In 2006 he became a cancer survivor and celebrated his fiftieth birthday.

His book is truly an original subject, and reading it will give you a new take on the situation of CHIMPANZEES. This talented author has given us a fresh look at the monkey and in doing so, has helped us get to know the monkey better.

In the third chapter, The Granddaddy Tree, there was a passage about family relationships.

“Kimbu climbed the long narrow ladder behind his daddy, feeling familiar excitement swell inside. He longed to scoot past Daddy and clamber up the ladder first. He knew he could reach the tiny platform at the top much faster than Daddy could. But the few times he had tried, Daddy had firmly grasped the rope tied to his safety harness and lowered him all the way to the safety net below. Kumbu had learned. Up here, Daddy was the boss. Down below it was his Mommy, with her careful system of rewards and punishments. But all of Mommy’s discipline, he realized, was only preparing him for the excitement he felt up in the lofty peak of the Big Top…..”

As you can see from the passage above, the author demonstrates an advanced sense of empathy with these animals. He writes deftly about how these animals feel, how they live, and how they communicate. The surprising part is how much, the author reveals, they have a similar structure to human socialization! It makes it easier to appreciate how they could be our ancient ancestors in the evolutionary design.

This book also brings to mind all of the long-held, culturally divers, and noble symbolism associated with the monkey and the great apes. The chimpanzee is in the family of the great apes, yet smaller than a gorilla. The chimpanzee is noted for its intelligence.

Right along with that is their reputation for being quite quick-witted, physically agile, and clever to a fault. Because of this comic ability, the monkeys and apes have been thought by some philosophers to represent the consciousness that is dissipated, and a lack of serious thought, a kind of irresponsible frivolity.

 However, in most ancient spiritual traditions, the monkeys and apes are revered as sacred, as having the highest evolved souls of the animal world. This is still apparent in many middle-eastern and eastern spiritual traditions.

In the eastern cultures, the monkey king finally attains the state of being of a Buddha. The symbolism there is that of wisdom and detachment. There is even the belief that the monkey symbolizes man’s errant belief that he is spiritually superior. Thus, historically, the monkey and the ape can represent demons and gods. Perhaps the most telling about ourselves is the way today, some people perceive the monkeys and apes as a caricature of us humans, but to them, it’s not flattering. It presents us as an image to escape: brutish, lascivious, lawless, base-instinct animal. Yet nothing could be further from the truth in the society of monkeys and apes.

There is strict social order like laws, there is relational commitment, there is considerable intelligence, and there is love among them and from them to us. Most of the behavior is not at all brutish but well thought out, actions with obvious deliberations on the merits. These are just a few of the kinds of things that the author discovers in his observation of the chimpanzees.

These beautiful, sentient animals represent a kind of freedom, intelligence, and physical vitality. We are discovering day by day just how smart and affectionate they are. Affection is linked with spirituality as we experience it. As you read this fascinating book, you will discover and better understand the message that he author is conveying here. There is a very spiritual connection between man and nature, between man and animals. Perhaps the deepest spiritual relationship exists between man and monkey.

At the end of the book, suggestions about “How to Help the Chimpanzees” includes a list of some good Web sites to visit. I recommend this book to all readers, especially those who love nature and animals. This is the kind of book that you will want to read more than once.

Marie-Claire

Marie-Claire Wilson, author of The Spiritual Tarot: The Keys to The Divine Temple, is a bilingual writer and poet. She has been a practicing medium for 28 years using direct clairvoyance, the Tarot, numerology and palmistry.  Office in Washington DC.  To make an appointment for a phone reading call toll-free: 1-877-847-7330. 
 
Click here to visit my web site   www.marie-claire.tv

 
Click here to link to Oracle 20/20 where article is published.