Trees. Doctors are now being encouraged to prescribe them. Patients should make time to walk amongst them. Talk to them. Yes, hug them.
Trees are the ultimate stress buster. They listen and never interrupt. They are always reliably, solidly, dependably, recurringly there.
They have recognisable shape, they are places of shelter, they are nature's original wind instruments.
Walking amongst trees in forests and woods we spend company amongst those who have lived longer than we have. The air we breathe is being filtered and freshened by the breathing of trees.
In the Bible the leaves of the trees clap their hands, the leaves of the tress are for the healing of the nations, No wonder Genesis 2.9 talks of "trees that were pleasing to the eye", even God found trees to be blessing.
As a boy living in the country on various farms I climbed trees, taking risks of life and limb without a second thought. Getting to the top of a tall fir tree was an exercise in perseverance, being scratched on face and hands, and getting that sticky resin on the hands that smelled of disinfectant. Or crawling along a branch above a river until it bent, but never broke.
So trees have always been part of my inner furniture, and the sight of a wood, or a single tree outlined against the sky is quite often enough to restore my soul. Still waters and green pastures do that as well; so no surprise that the doctors are prescribing river walks and country rambles as well. A new alternative medicine called Psalmotherapy.
The trees in these photos stand in a field which, each year, is sown with grain. Every time I pass them they look different against the sky, but I'd recognise their shape anywhere. When my own life gets a bit intense, or too low spirits are bumping along the basement of the heart, I find solace in trees. It is precisely their thereness, and their responsiveness to the seasons and to the weather, that is strangely reassuring when my own inner climate is unsettled by circumstances. I think it's because they are a metaphor for the faithful thereness of God, and for that sound of the breeze playing through branches that is a metaphor in sound for the mysterious movements and energies of the Holy Spirit, the renewing presence and sustaining gift of God in our lives.
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