Into the Aspen

Moments of “one-ness” in the sacred grove

Stepping into the hush of the aspen grove, I felt as if I was sure to see sprightly Lilliputian fairies spying on me from behind the papery skin of the aspen trees or peeking out from underneath one of the clumps of periwinkle wildflowers mounding in soft heaps across the forest floor. I listened closely, certain that I would hear the tinkle of their laughter or the skitter of their tiny footsteps, but all that filled my ears was the melody of silvered leaves overhead whispering to one another.

A slightly stronger breeze, hinting at the afternoon thunderstorm to come, rushed around me, and the songs of each of a million individual leaflets melded into a single symphonic harmony within the treetop canopy.

I had come to the mountains in search of a bit of nurturing from Mother Nature. My heart and soul, craving a bit of respite from the crazy world of mankind, ached for the connection with her energy.

The wind gusted again, tossing the treetops to and fro. Together with the pale sunlight slanting through the gathering clouds, it transformed each leaf into a shimmering silver dollar, flashing dark and then bright against the purpling sky. All together, those leaves shivered into a cascade of otherworldly beauty.

The scent of rain and wet earth clung to me. My hair, damp from the sprinkling mist, curled against my cheeks, unruly and heavy. And my skin pebbled with the animal knowledge of the impending storm.

The sky rumbled, a soft heave of breath. The reservoir beside me, an obsidian bath cradled in the arms of the mountaintop, seemed restless, its surface slicked with slippery waves. Beyond the aspen grove, the trail stretched into an open pass before dropping down over the other side of the ridge.

The heavens rumbled again. I smelled the faint scent of sulfur that always accompanies lightening and instinctively knew that I should seek lower ground. Here and there, all around me, hulking trunks of burnt trees punctuated the lightness of the aspen forest. But the lure of the grove beckoned me on just a little further.

I had ascended through the pines, thick bristles of resinous verdure tenaciously clinging to the granite slopes. The day before, the sky had arched blue-as-a-robin’s-egg in an endless canopy overhead. But last night’s bone-rattling winds had brought with them the foreboding of rain. I had awakened to leaden skies and a light mist but had decided to head up the mountain anyways.

Clamoring over granite boulders and sloshing through low-lying hollows of mud, I had breathed with the Earth, inhaling her loamy scent and finding solace in the depths of her shadows. There’s nothing like losing yourself for a few hours in the woods to calm the soul. Here, in the whispered depths, dappled with pale sunlight spilling over verdant mosses, it’s possible to step aside for a few moments and witness the Universe exactly as she is.

Aspen groves are curious entities. Although you may stand amidst what appears to be a whole family of individual trees, beneath your feet pulses an immense rhizomatic root structure derived long ago from a single seedling.

That original parent tree sent out suckers all around it, each of which (if it survived) became a new tree, reaching up for the light of the sun. Each tree is genetically identical, because they are, in fact, one organism connected by that root system.

An individual tree can live for up to one-hundred-and-fifty years. But the root system, the true heart of the grove, can be ancient — sometime thousands of years of more. A grove in Utah named “Pando,” also known as the “Trembling Giant,” is believed to be as old as eighty-thousand years.

Pando’s tree system sprawls over a hundred rolling acres in the Fishlake National Forest, and it is mind-boggling to me that that the whole thing, each individual sapling or tree, shaped by the wind and the rain and forces of nature, is actually part of just one single entity. Long ago, a tiny seedling took root in ancient soil, and that seedling, happy in its home, flourished and sent out miles of underground roots and genetic replicas of itself — over and over and over.

When an individual tree dies, the root system sends up a new suckling in its place to breath in the air and bathe in the newly available sunlight. And even if the forest was ravaged by fire, the root system would live on, tucked safely underground, and would regenerate.

Aspen stands actually benefit from forest fires, which clear out other trees that might be casting shade upon the grove. It might take a while, but the grove would re-birth itself.

Standing under the Aspens’ whispery shade, and realizing that their life-force pulses deep beneath your feet really makes you wonder where life begins and ends, and what it really means to be an individual who is also part of a greater whole.

I’ve stood beneath the aspen trees in all seasons. Now, in the summer, the pale leaves, glossed smooth on one side and painted flat on the other, shimmer when they catch in the wind. But, in the fall, they put on, perhaps, their finest show, dressing in gold finery and dancing across the blue, blue sky.

But, no matter the season, once you have stepped into the sacred grove, you can’t help but feel enshrouded by an ethereal beauty. A sense of one-ness, a connection with the power of the Universe envelops you.

Now, under the shudder of rumbling skies, I eyed the trail ahead, which snaked past the reservoir and out onto an open expanse of wildflowers before dropping down over the other, more exposed, flank of the mountain. It was time to turn back. I had enough respect for Mother Nature to know not to tempt the fates.

Taking a sip of water from my camelback, I paused for a few moments, drinking in the moan of the wind and the wet air, heavy with the gathering mist and the richness of the earth and the mosses and the decaying leaves upon the trail. I reached out and placed my hand just below one of the aspen “eyes,” the spot on the trunk where a branch had once sprouted but was self-pruned by the tree as it raced ever upwards towards the sun.

My fingers tingled and I sensed a surge of power grounding me to the grove, almost as if I were one of the aspens. I could almost feel the tendrils of the roots grasping for me and hear the whispers of microbial communication running through the soil.

And then, above the rising wind, I was certain that I heard the faint tinkle of a fairy’s laughter.

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Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, neurophilosopher, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies). Erika is also an editor for Mindfully Speaking.

Story and photos © Erika Burkhalter 2020. All rights reserved.