How do I begin to write about what happened today? The magic and mystery of my wooded walk took me deeper into its bosom. I walked with a friend. We were chatting, not having a particularly deep conversation, but aware and observant.

As we walked over the small rise, I noticed the energy of a stand of trees down below. It was drenched in power. Hundred-foot tall, slender, moss-covered trees with their limbs mostly towards the top populated the little basin. This time I stopped, curious, dipped in wonder. What is it about this patch of trees that catches my attention every time I walk this way?

I stood in attendance, wondering out loud about the magnificent energy. My friend noticed that the trees formed a crescent. I had walked this way so many times and never noticed that seven trees came together to form the most perfect arc. The trees, similar in shape and energy, ringed both sides of the path, and radiated the essence of other-worldliness. It was celestial, the sense of rightness, of being at home.

I did not move. It was not that I could not. I simply had no will to leave, no movement occurred. Awareness was replaced with awe, no one aware, simply awe arising. When I finally did move my legs were shaky. I grounded the energy through my feet into the earth and even that did not stop the wobbles. We walked in silence, slowly making our way to the next of my green friends, Home Tree.

As I stood in front of that glorious tree, I was again taken by her huge feminine energy. Her energy was different from the crescent stand. She emptied me more and played in the energy that had been awakened only moments before. I started to say something about form not mattering, that the energy was the thing, and heard the words, yes and no. On the highest level form does not matter, yes … and, right here, right now form matters, deeply matters. It is how God comes to Earth.

I saw. I saw the trees of our world in a holy new light. I saw the stands of trees in the Amazon, the stands of redwoods on our West Coast. They, in their pristine preciousness do not simply remove carbon from our air. They are God’s grace flowing into this world. Remove them, cut them down and we diminish the flow of Grace. God cannot get here except through His Creation—the trees, us—all of God’s creation. Trees do not realize God-ness. They simply are it. As designed, they are fully serviceable for the Creator’s use. The bigger, the taller, the more commanding the tree, the more energy flows into our world.

We humans are it, but are not a serviceable vehicle for the God energy until we realize our Godhead. It is why we are here—the meaning of life—to realize God. We do not realize God as long as we claim our individual identity. We can claim God or claim ourselves. We cannot have both. As individuals, we are the gods Moses warned us about—Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

I walked up the short grade towards the towering firs and my head titled to the skies. Above my head was nothing but the stately green of God. I looked at my friend and saw there too, God. Tears shook this body, seized its ability to continue in any normal way. Normal was gone, replaced by God everywhere I looked.

The miracle is not what I experienced today. The miracle is that any of us can function here at all. Why we are not dropped to our knees, sobbing, drunk on the beauty of this world, so overcome with the majesty that we can do nothing but babble incoherently seems the greatest miracle of all.