They are holy

Reading from Tuesday, November 12, 2013 yoga class

From the book "Living a life of gratitude" by Sara Wiseman

In the piece that follows, the author is describing the first time she saw the Redwoods in Northern California.

"...The trees are very near.  The signs say "redwoods," but these are much smaller trees than you expected.  You can tell they're redwood, because of their bark, but size wise, they look just like regular trees.  Is this it?  Are these the mighty trees you've heard so much about?  And yet even as your anxiety builds into a crescendo of disappointment, your car winds farther into the forest, and you begin to notice a change.

It's quieter, suddenly.  It's greener.  There's a hush in the air.  There's a presence.  There's something different.  And you look again at the trees looming past your window, you realize: they are enormous...They are huge.  The are aware.  They are amazing.  They are holy.

You may pull over and get out at this point, parking on a shoulder covered with red bark, and head tentatively into the woods--tentatively because in the presence of these trees, it is clear that you are in sacred land... To be in the presence of beings who have been here twice or even three times as long as we have--who've rested in the same spot, absorbing the light and water, simply living as free sentient beings--this is an amazing knowing.

The trees stay with you your whole life.  You never forget them, the sacred beings with their rusty red trunks extending high into the sky, their awareness so much beyond ours."

I saw the redwoods only once, but as the author says, "the trees stay with you your whole life."  I can still remember how small I felt in their presence... how magnificent they are... how humbled I was to be in their presence.  And their smell... I can still remember that glorious smell of redwood trees.