I had just shared my first Prayer Basket workshop virtually, and was still in awe a bit about the ease that I finally allowed to craft this workshop. I’ve always been drawn to the golden sweet tree whose gives a vanilla smell when she’s been basking in the sun. Ponderosa Pine trees are everywhere where I live and grew up in Montana. They were silent observers when I ran their trails and changed from a girl into a woman. They were there when one of my best friends suddenly passed beyond this earth. Giving me something to focus on as grief flowed through me. After returning from an impactful journey in Asia, Ponderosa welcomed me in a new and surprising way. She started to share her magic with me. I saw the animals that ran around her, but I really started to notice her golden glow and the way that she houses so much life beyond just her roots and branches. It was within the ponderosa trees that I really developed my energy and feeling language. Their company made me feel so safe when unfamiliar feelings and energies started to come to me.
I recall a time in 2016 when I was doing an intuitive training and wanted to test out my “new” abilities. Abilities that I always had, that we all have, but that I was becoming more aware of. I went to one of my favorite forest places in the base of the jagged Bitterroot Mountain range and sat down. I saw a shadow behind me, wearing a long coat and a wide brimmed hat. I felt curious about this being. I connected with them momentarily then started to notice specific Ponderosa Pine Trees calling to me. I walked over to one and saw a tag on it with a number, marking it. I pulled the tag off. I was then attracted to another tree, which also had a tag, and pulled this one off too. I was guided from one tree to the next, all of which had these tags on them, pulling them off. As I pulled off the tag there was a sigh of relief that I felt. I investigated to see if all the trees in this area had these tags. No, just certain ones. I was starting to feel more curious about my connection to this tree.
When I started to feel the attraction towards making Pine Needle Baskets, I walked and connected to the trees in one of my Sacred Forests a lot. Asking for permission, and simply listening to what they were saying. Not in words, but in feelings, in images, and sudden insights as I walked through the Ponderosa Cathedral. I was reminded of a Dr. Suess piece that my mother gave me for my college graduation. A unique framed colored print from the Lorax, where he is standing on a tree stump looking at the furry green hands holding a thneed. “I am the Lorax. I speak for the Trees.” is printed at the bottom. The trees have spoken to me for as long as I can remember, and perhaps by making art with the trees, I can speak for them. Share the beauty and comfort, intimacy and connection, safety and security that I feel with them, with those I share my art with. Especially Pine Needle Baskets. I was getting curious about making Pine Needle Baskets in the winter, and part of me didn’t think I would be able to find pine needles easily with snow on the ground. I let that idea go, and was joyfully surprised to find a fallen Ponderosa where I often hike, hidden in plain sight! I laughed out loud when I saw this fallen tree with her dried pine needles, as if she was just waiting for me to notice her and begin to gather her needles.
Weaving Pine Needle Baskets quickly became an important hobby for me. The focus/unfocus process of looking at then looking away from the basket as I wove helped me to feel this timelessness, this flow. I picked up weaving at a time in my life when I was actively choosing a very different way of living than I had lived before. With that came a lot of discomfort, confusion, uncertainty. Any time I noticed myself slipping back into a way of being that was blaming, that wasn’t taking responsibility for my life, that was frozen from fear of the uncertain new way of being, I wove. And it’s wasn’t just the process of the weaving that transported me to connection and safety and possibility, but the smell. The smell of the pine needles hold that same sweet vanilla smell that the tree holds when she is sunbathing. Reminding me of the sweetness of life, the sweet dreams I have chosen and am cultivating, the sweet way the Pine has always been here for me.
Like all trees, our relationship is deeply and sensually connected. How divine is it that my exhale of carbon dioxide is the trees and all plants inhale? And their exhale of oxygen is my inhale. We were meant for each other, their waste my life, my waste giving them life. It had changed the way I think about “my waste”, the things that I don’t want, that don’t give me life. It invites in this idea that my waste is something else’s life, which supports me in accepting myself. It changes the word “waste” to compose, to nourishment, to life.
Accepting all the connections and how supportive and life giving they really are. I am not an isolated being here trying to make do. I simply need to listen to all that is there for me to hear. Once I launched my first “Crafting Prayer Baskets as they did in Ancient Times” Pine Needle Prayer Basket workshop, I set out for a run to connect to the trees, to share with them my next step. I was delighted to find a beautiful giant ponderosa that had fallen many moons ago and was not alive anymore. I was delighted because there were all these small young ponderosa trees encircling this larger dead tree. There was also so much wild sage growing around this tree, and sage has become a wonderful plant ally for me recently. Speaking to the power of letting go, the cycles of death and life, their connection and the ways that our lives are honored long after we are gone by those who still feel us, remember what we’ve shared with them, and take it forward in new and unique ways.
If you would like to explore your relationship to Ponderosa, to prayer baskets, to weaving, to all of this as they did in Ancient Times, sign up for the workshop. I look forward to weaving together soon.