Carol Mackay Mertz

I was about to break my fast with a small bowl of egg salad this morning, when the egg salad spoke to me. I was giving my appreciation for it, when it talked over my words with thoughts of its own! The egg salad, and the little Romain lettuce leaves had a message, and it began with, “Change one thing … Change everything!”

I then stopped what I was about to eat and became quiet in order to listen.

So the message went like this: “ We, the food, are grateful to you, the human, for consuming us. Our job is to service life forms who need nourishment in order to live. We gave our life force freely in order to become food. We are appreciative to you for using us to sustain you on your human journey, and this day, we ask you to change one thing, just one thing.

The one thing would be when you give appreciation for the food that you eat, is to also recognize the joy, and the life force that has been freely given by the food itself. It is nice to thank the people that brought the food to you and the miracles that happened to grow it, but the food itself should be acknowledged. This one thing will be a tiny change, and it will affect everything going forward.

Plants and animals are in a beautiful relationship with humans. We experience love and hate. Love expands and nourishes us. Hate degrades us. We personally do not hate anything. We surrender to what is happening, and we have no regrets about our having lived, served and died, for we know, for certain that it will all happen again in the next cycle.

When we become food for others as when the panda bear eats bamboo, the bamboo does not cry and explode in anger. No, the moment the bamboo becomes food, and understands that it is in service to the panda, it surrenders and rejoices that it is finally at the end of its own cycle, and it is filled with bliss. Eventually, the panda will die and decompose and nourish the soil with what he was, so that new bamboo trees will grow there.

So the cycle will then be renewed.

Shifting perspectives on our lives here on earth is essential so that we can all get back to seeing the giant cycles of life, the honoring of all parts of the cycles and the seeing with our hearts, the real world of living beings, without shame, guilt, or fear. It is the recognition of the secret connection to all of life. Life is a true circle not a pyramid. As nature beings, whether plant or animal, we have consciousness, and can communicate with other living beings. The humans need to remember this. Carol, tell them about the baby tree.“

The egg salad shot me a picture of the memory that it wants me to tell you about.

And so the story goes, “OK, I remember when we first got to our home here in the forest. As a family, we climbed the mountain directly in back of our log home. It was great! The elevation kept increasing, and so did the view. Soon we could see the tiny speck of our home’s roof and across two mountains to the Skyline drive. What surprised me the most was that the top of the mountain was covered in grass and there were many meadows and spaced out trees. The Blue Ridge Mountains are some of the oldest mountains in the world and grass grows on top!

If came time for us to descend. This was not an easy task as there were no trails for humans. We started down and bushwhacked as best we could. I got separated from my family and suddenly found myself at a very steep slope. I was gaining speed and had to stop myself. I sat down on my bottom to lower my height and reached out for something to grab onto. My hand found a baby tree. I grabbed on and it held me and stopped my forward motion. Most of its roots came out of the ground.

I stopped to catch my breath and thank the tree feeling like an arrogant human, taking the life of a baby tree to save myself, when the tree spoke to me. In my mind, I heard the tree say, “ You did not grab onto me, I reached out to you!“ As with my egg salad this morning, I then proceeded to have a wordless conversation with the baby tree.

As I was re-planting the tree and covering the roots with soil with my hands, the tree gave me a new perspective on trees in general and our forest in particular. The tree said, “I was the only thing in the forest that could have saved you. If you had continued downhill and at great speed, you would have encountered a rock or a big tree and could have been greatly injured. So as I saw you coming, the other trees communicated to me that I was to save you, I reached out to stop your fall. And from this day on you are my human and I am your tree.“

OK, just wow!

Fast forward 28 years to the day I am writing this. I look out of the window to the forest and the mountain beyond and have a great desire to visit that same tree. I want to see how big it has grown in these 28 years. As I am now 77 years and not as strong as I was back then, I reluctantly think that would probably not happen.

But then the image of a well grown fir tree came into my interior vision. Tears came to my eyes, and I could feel a wonderful calm, and a great love from this very same tree, “my tree“.

The tree spoke to me again this morning. “ I am the mother tree for all of these baby trees you see around me. In the forest, we all have purpose. My purpose the day I met you was to save your life. Only a baby tree could have saved you without harming you. I now provide other baby trees with the same opportunity as I had that day. The forest loves you and your family, who mentor us and protect us. We know what is happening for you down there. Our roots communicate with your energies and the mother trees around your home provide us with the latest updates. When you need it, we send love, courage, peace, and comfort. All of us together are a mighty force“.

So, with more tears, I express my deep gratitude to the entire forest, and in particular to my small fir tree all grown up.

The whispers of my soul made it clear this morning, that I was to share these experiences and more with other humans as it is now time to broaden the scope of what it is to be human. Every human has the ability to listen or see, or feel the nature around them, as well as the broader field of consciousness itself. Humanity is changing, and if one human changes …everything changes. That my friend is the circle of life.

Next week I will reveal the conversations I had with nature spirits out west.

Peace be with you.