Into the woods I go and find my soul

A Lenten reflection to stay-rooted (Pray), stay-integrated (Penance) and stay-connected (Share)

I picked up the title from the quote by John Muir, “And into the woods I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” An apt invitation for the lent. Get deep into the forest, slow down, breathe deep, look around, see the hidden, hear the silence, smell and feel the forest. It has a lot to offer for our soul and for our human community.

STAY-ROOTED

When you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father

 Forests are superorganisms with a variety of lives and interconnections. “There are more life forms in a handful of forest soil than there are people in the planet,” Peter Wohlleben would say. Trees are more precious in a forest. Even a simple gaze at a tree would tell you the largeness of the forest, its long history and abundance. For a tree or for the entire forest, the root is certainly the most decisive factor than what is growing above the ground. The root looks after the survival of an organism. Scientists even consider roots as the brain, where centuries of experiences are stored. These experiences help the tree’s survival to the present day. The root network under our feet is in charge of all chemical activity in the tree, as our internal processes are also regulated by chemical messengers. If the root encounters toxic substances, impenetrable stones, or saturated soil, it analyses the situation and transmits the necessary adjustments to the growing tip. The root tip changes direction as a result of this communication and steers the growing root around the critical areas. Rootedness is an important factor for a tree to survive, to bloom, to communicate and to live for centuries.  

 Rootedness to God is an essential element of our human existence. It changes mere survival into vocation. Hence, the season of Lent calls for a deep prayer ‘in a closed room.’ Withdrawing to prayer was an everyday experience of Jesus. Jesus had a beautiful God-experience at Jordan in the company of John the Baptist. He reenacted it amidst his intense busy life as an itinerant prophet. He withdrew himself and nurtured communication with God in silence and solitude. He did not pay much attention to Jewish prescribed prayer, but personally sought out intimate, silent encounters with his Father. His prayer at Gethsemane is the most dramatic example of his search for God’s will, at the moment of a total crisis in his life. Staying-rooted to the divine puts you in a position to face all odds of life, and remain joyful. 

 When you stay-rooted, there is an openness to letting life get ‘into your bones, under your flesh’ and you keep flourishing, like a tree. Prayerfulness, in its purest form, is true receptivity to the essential lessons needed to live a full life. When you are lost or resistant to a much-needed new perspective, this rootedness can position you to be surprised by grace. A life of prayer helps you to form a ‘circle of grace’ that feels, deepens and enlivens your personal life, amidst today’s anxious world. Staying-rooted means remaining patient like trees. Rooted trees are patient for centuries, but flourishing. Regular deep prayers keep you calm and enhance your patience with life. St. Francis de Sales used to advise people who are impatient with life, that they need “a cup of understanding, a barrel of love and an ocean of patience.” Ralph Waldo Emerson reconfirms, “Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.” 

 STAY-INTEGRATED 

When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face

 Trees are ancient. More species of trees can live to a ripe old age. Its health depends on the stability of the forest ecosystem. It’s better if temperature, moisture, and light conditions don’t change abruptly, because trees react extremely slowly. But when all the external conditions are optimal, insects, fungi, bacteria, and viruses are always lurking, waiting for the chance to strike. That usually happens only when a tree gets out of balance. Under normal conditions, a tree carefully apportions its energy. The largest portion is used for daily living: the tree has to breathe, digest its food, supply its fungal allies with sugar and grow every day. Then the tree has to keep hidden reserves of energy on hand to fight off pests. 

 When trees grow together, nutrients and water can be optimally divided among them all so that each tree can grow into the best tree it can be. In the forest, by cutting the competitors we don’t help the trees or forest to grow. The remaining trees are fit and grow better, but they are not particularly long-lived. This is because a tree can only be as strong as the forest that surrounds it. ‘A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.’ Trees in the forest know this intuitively, they do not hesitate to help each other. It takes a forest to create a microclimate suitable for tree growth and sustenance. So, it’s not surprising that isolated trees that we have in our backyard or city streets have far shorter lives than those living connected together in forests. They seem to have lost the ability to communicate. 

 Lent invites us to get deeply into ourselves, see how fragmented we are, losing strength and confidence. At times, we lose faith, perspective and purpose in life. We may have happy moments but may not be truly joyful. The practice of fasting and penance, though looks external practices, but has an internal effect, which results in change of vision and behaviour. When a young man approached Jesus for the gift of eternal life, he was fulfilling all the Jewish laws at that time. Jesus challenged him with a ‘fast’ - ‘sell your properties and give to the poor.’ He was not ready for the ‘fast from his possessions’. He left Jesus, unhappily. Lent, with fasting and penance, calls us to recheck our vision of life, at its core.     

 The rootedness of God helps us to stay-integrated, like the tree which remains healthy for hundreds of years. Here, our thoughts, our words, our actions and our behaviours all stay on the same line, integrated. You are strong and resilient at this moment. The shared and deeply held belief in God helps you to be resilient in a world full of stresses and struggles.  

 Spiritual integrity is recognising and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded and flourishing in love and compassion. Like the trees in the forest, connected, sharing energy and resources, remaining strong and balanced.   

 STAY-CONNECTED 

When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing

 An organism that is too greedy and takes too much without giving anything in return, vanishes fast in the forest. We used to think of trees as competing crusaders, but in the forest, they stay-connected as members of the same family, relating, communicating and enriching one another.

 Forests and trees, in particular, are radically generous. The older the tree, the more quickly it grows. So, in the case of trees, being older doesn’t mean being weak, bowed, and fragile. It means being full of energy and highly productive. Mature old trees are the housing colonies for hundreds of animal species. Some insect species stay in a tree for generations and the tree sustains them. A scientist found in a tree 2041 animals (insects, birds, etc.) belonging to 257 different species. Higher species diversity stabilises the forest ecosystem. Even a dead tree trunk can offer a valuable service managing water for living trees merely because it is there. An interesting fact, a fifth of all animal and plant species – about 6000 of the species we know about – depend on a dead tree. 

 Forest air is the epitome of healthy air. People step into the forest for a breath of fresh air. The air is cleaner under trees because the trees act as huge filter. The visitors to the forest would always say that their heart feels lighter, and they feel at home. 

 The ecosystem achieves the fullness of life with tens and thousands of species interwoven and interdependent. Scientists discovered that leaves falling into streams and rivers leach acids into the ocean that stimulate the growth of plankton, the first and most important building block in the food chain. More fish because of healthy forests. 

 Trees use up large quantities of water per square mile, which they release into the air through transpiration. This water vapour creates new clouds that travel farther inland to release their rain. Water reaches even the most remote areas. This water pump works so well that the downpours in some large areas of the world, like the Amazon basin.

 ‘Worship of the self’ is the central preoccupation at times in our modern society. Moulding the self, investing in the self, expressing the self, etc. Hyper-individualism has been normalised. There is no time or concern for the other. This is the attitude of the Priest and Levite of the Parable of Good Samaritan. My path, my job, and my purity and I won’t touch the wounded man. The trees that behave this way don’t last in the forest. Only the trees that stay-connected, nourish themselves, nurse the wounded and spread growth in the forests.   

 Helen Keller used to say, “There is joy in self-forgetfulness. So, I try to make light in others’ eyes my sun, the music in others’ ears my symphony, the smile on others’ lips, my happiness.” The individualist sees society as a collection of individuals who is in contact with one another, a corporate impersonal mindset. In the business of daily life, their tendency is to see the other as an object and not a whole, reducing people to mere data. But Good Samaritans see them as a whole person – with body, mind, heart and soul. They see society as a web of contact with one another. A person is a node in a network, affecting each other and sharing energy with the neighbour, as it happens in the forest.  

 Lent calls us to have the heart of the Father, like the father of the prodigal son who races out to greet him and fulfil his needs. This should be our attitude, fulfilling the responsibility that life has placed before us. Martin Luther King Jr. once advised that your life and work should have length – something you get better at over a lifetime. It should have breadth – something you get better at with people. And it should have height – it should put you in service to some ideal and satisfy the soul’s yearning for righteousness. The trees of the forest have abundant resources to sustain the lives of all forms, far and near. The created world is an abundant world, has resources for everybody’s need. The focus should be sharing. 

 Conclusion

 Bleden Lane speaks of his experience in the woods: “Whenever I plunge into the wilderness, my body and the environment move in and out of each other in an intimate pattern of exchange. Where I ‘end’ and everything ‘begins’ isn’t always clear. What seems to be ‘me’ doesn’t stop at the fixed boundaries of my skin.” The forest has a lot to offer us, to refine and redefine our lives. We don’t see any discontented tree. Lent is a beautiful opportunity to get into ourselves, revisit our motives and life-choices, and align with the Lord’s. And into the woods I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.

Fr. Ricopar Royan