 ‘What is the soul?’ I asked.
Adam seemed pleased with the question. ‘Excellent!’ he said, clapping his hands together. ‘Now we can go for a walk!’
‘But...’
‘Don’t worry; we’ll answer your question all right, but we need to take a walk to do it. And I need to tell you about trees: some of the most important people alive.’
Walking at the pace of nature
Adam set off across the fields at the slowest pace imaginable, like a walking meditation. ‘This is the way to walk when you are hunting the soul,’ he said.
‘Always at the pace of nature. And how do you know what that is? Watch the wind in the trees, the clouds in the sky, or the speed at which a stream flows: that is nature’s pace. Keep to that, and breathe deeply.
‘Keep your eyes on the ground as well and try to walk in my footsteps if you can. When you do that, your senses will open and you’ll see things you’ve never seen before.’
After about fifteen minutes of this walking at the pace of nature, I began to understand what he meant. Something did start to change in me, and I found myself noticing things I’d never paid attention to before.
Firstly, there was a sort of sheen to the earth, as if there was a layer of energy or mist between me and the ground. With it, the world became silent except when I took my attention to certain sounds; then the only thing in the world became the music of the wind, or the rustle of leaves, or the gurgle of the stream to my right, and all of it seemed to have the new depth, as if layers of voices – the water, wind, and leaves – were communicating with each other and with me. I became, I suppose, hypnotized, enchanted by the realization that nature was alive and was talking to me.
At some point in this relaxed state, I noticed that Adam was talking quietly to me about trees.
‘They all contain mystery. Silence, breath, the stillness of nature, and the presence of the tree are the ingredients for alchemy, just as Eve and the Buddha found, there in the shade of a tree. Trees can tell us all we need to know about truth, though it may take us a lifetime or two to realize that, because they move and speak so much slower than us!
The holy oak
‘Lift up your eyes,’ he said. ‘You wanted to know about the soul, and this is where we find out.’
I looked up and saw that we were standing in a large field of straw. At its centre stood an oak tree, huge and powerful, its branches spanning the sky, some of them with bright ribbons hanging from them and dancing in the breeze; its roots snaking deep into the earth, and its centre gnarled and strong. Its very middle was missing, however, as if blasted away, and there was a hole like a cave in its trunk.
‘The holy oak, the most beloved tree of all. It stands for divine spirit and the powers of sky and earth. The oak is the protector of the land and will give you shelter, serenity, and guidance, since you, too, were born from the soil.
‘This one is even more special. You see that its centre is missing? That is because it was struck by lightning, which is a mark of honour that only the most powerful and worthy of trees receive. It means that this tree was chosen as a messenger of spirit, and it can enlighten us, too, if we choose to meet that spirit.’
A messenger of spirit
Adam then gave me instructions for how to meet the spirit it contained: by walking at the pace of nature towards the tree, paying close attention to it until I felt a change in the air around me. I was then to sit down in front of the oak. The change in the air came about twenty feet from the trunk.
‘Most people move too fast to notice that change,’ said Adam. ‘But it’s always there. It is a change in the nature of things. Trees are our great transformers.’
What I saw as I sat quietly, filling my lungs with fresh air and feeling the sun on my back, was a shimmering around the tree, like the sheen from the earth I had seen earlier, then small particles of light that coalesced around the trunk and became waves. It was as if the tree had a glow to it, expanding outwards on all sides to create a pool of hazy grey-blue light: the soul of the tree.
The shimmering light was drawn into and out of the hole in the trunk, as if the tree was itself breathing, and my eyes followed its breath into the darkness of the cave at its centre.
I stood up and walked towards it, then backed in and sat down as the trunk enfolded me. I closed my eyes, and pictures began to form of what the tree must have seen down the ages: images of nature and man and time and change, all of it spiralling like circles. I felt myself drifting off and upwards, following the spirals through the trunk, the branches, and the leaves of the oak, becoming mist-like myself and entering the sky, moving away from Earth and into a world of dancing stars.
There was a cloud within the stars, a fog of energy that was crackling and sparking. Beyond it there were what appeared to be giant spiderwebs, each one holding the grey and lifeless form of a man or woman suspended in space. The cloud intrigued me and seemed incredibly attractive somehow, as if radiating peace and benign intelligence. I tried to steer myself towards it but managed only to drift towards one of the webs. I began to panic. I can’t remember whether I cried out, but suddenly Adam’s hand grabbed me and pulled me bodily from the trunk.
‘That’s enough!’ he said sharply. Then, in a gentler tone as I opened my eyes: ‘Trees are transformers, as I said. They can transform us, too, and take us into the world of spirit before our time.
‘Let’s call today the beginning of your understanding of the soul. There will be time for questions later.’
With that, he reached into the tree and took some of the soot that the lightning had left on the trunk and rubbed it on my face.
‘This soot is a blessing. It’ll help your soul stay in your body!’
From The Sin Eater’s Last Confessions © 2008 by Ross Heaven, published by Llewellyn.
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Inspirational features 
