I was looking through photographs from a recent walk in the woods just before the leaves started to change when I came across this tree again.

I remembered exactly why I had stopped.

One of its enormous limbs stretched above the canopy in such a way that it looked almost human—a giant arm reaching upward, its branches opening like fingers toward the sky.

I stood beneath it for quite some time.

There was something about it that reminded me of Vrikshasana—Tree Pose in yoga.

So there in the woods, surrounded by actual trees, I became one too.

I planted one foot firmly into the earth.
Lifted the other.
Found my balance.
And stood.

Tree Pose is interesting because balance doesn’t mean becoming perfectly still.

Your eyes are helping you orient.
Your inner ear is sensing where you are in space.
Your muscles are continually making tiny adjustments.

Your body sways.
You correct.
You soften.
You return.

Balance is alive.

And standing there, I began imagining roots growing from beneath my foot and traveling deep into the earth.

With each breath, I let some of what I had been carrying travel downward with them.

The worries.
The stress.
The things I had been turning over in my mind.

Down through my legs.
Down through those imaginary roots.
Into the ground beneath me.

And then I looked up.

That magnificent tree was doing something entirely different above the earth.

It was reaching.

Higher than I could ever reach.

Past the surrounding canopy.
Toward the sunlight.
Toward the open sky.
Toward something beyond what I could see.

And suddenly I thought about how often we treat those two things as opposites.

We think being grounded means being practical.
Realistic.
Careful.
Keeping our feet firmly planted where we are.

And dreaming asks us to look somewhere else.

But trees seem to know better.

They send their roots into darkness and their branches toward light.

They anchor themselves deeply enough that they can keep reaching.

Perhaps we can do the same.

We can honor where we are while still imagining where we might go.
We can be steady without becoming rigid.
We can bend when the wind comes without believing we’ve lost our balance.
And we can reach toward dreams that seem impossibly high without having to know exactly how we’ll touch them.

Maybe we can only reach as far as we are willing to root.

That tree didn’t know I was standing beneath it making a lesson out of its branches.

It was simply doing what trees do.

Rooting.
Growing.
Reaching.
Moving with the wind.

And perhaps that’s why I needed to stop and look.

Because for a few quiet moments, it reminded me that I can do all of those things, too.

Feet toward the earth.
Heart open.
Arms toward the sky.

Still growing toward whatever light is calling me.

With love,
Clarissa