It is my sincere hope that completing these twelve movements has left you feeling more grounded, resilient, and ready to face the needs and challenges of this world and this life. But the journey doesn’t end here. You can continue to use these movements to check in with yourself and your life, periodically returning to each for a simple check-up and reminder. It can be a tool of ongoing self-care.
You can also take each movement and go deeper or reach out farther with it. In this metaphor of a tree, trees that stand alone are not as resilient as those who stand with other trees. Trees form networks of mutual support, as do so many other species – including humans! If you are resilient and secure in any of the areas we’ve explored with the movements, you can reach out to help those who are less so. Direct aid and systems change are both needed.
The ultimate goal, for me and I hope for you as well, is a world where we can all thrive and live well, deeply connected to the whole living system. There can be enough for everyone, if we learn what “enough” is and how to share and care for one another. Even in the face of unavoidable (at this point) climate chaos and loss of life on this planet, there is still a choice to live as well as possible and to do the good that we can do. So please tend to your own tree of resiliency. Be well rooted, sturdy in the winds, and receptive to the gift of sunlight. And then know that you are not alone. Others surround you, connected in so many ways.
May we all live, resiliently, together.
Optional Final Spiritual Exercises
Exercise One: Find an Image of a Resilient Tree
Find a tree image that inspires you and place it somewhere you will see it regularly and be reminded of the resiliency work you have done. If you simply do an internet search for “resilient tree” you will find many powerful pictures of trees surviving what look like very hard situations. Or you may like to get a more traditional tree of life image, which is very popular and available in a variety of formats.
Exercise Two: Get to Know a Tree
We’ve used the tree as our metaphor, but there could be a lot of wisdom left to discover from an actual tree. Choose a tree and spend some time with it. Get to know it in a non-human way. Sit with it, observe it, meditate with it, talk to it. Ask it what you can do for it. Say thank you to the trees for all they have given us. Recognize our relationship to each other.