“So, it’s a tree. Big deal.” I hear you say. “I see them every day. What’s special about this one?” My reply is “Nothing!”. That’s partly my point. We see trees every day. And they quietly make our lives richer. I can’t imagine a world without trees. Paulo Coelho wrote “In a forest of a hundred thousand trees, no two leaves are alike. And no two journeys along the same path are alike.” I am so pleased with that fact! I’m in danger of becoming a tree hugger! (Actually, I am one! And proud of it!)

But this isn’t a blog about trees - that’s already been done! I wanted to talk about spirituality. A term that’s hard to pin down. Piaget wrote that a picture is worth a thousand words. Hence a picture of a tree - and some words. A tree seems like a good image for spirituality for a number of reasons. Trees are everyday things. Look out of your window and you can probably see several. They are part of our everyday lives. Standing there quietly getting on with their lives producing oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide. Taking in something that damages us and replacing it with something life giving.

Another element of trees is that they provide shelter. Wildlife of all kinds use trees as their home. They in their turn look after our environment. Whilst the dawn chorus may not always be a welcome alarm call, it is a reminder that we share our lives with all manner of other creatures all of whom have their own lives. And things to teach us.

Finally, trees just ARE! They are able to get on with being trees. An oak doesn’t look down on a beech tree. The Holly doesn’t mock the apple tree for not having spikes. Each has its place and makes its own contribution. Each one depends on the other.

At this point it’s tempting to get allegorical and point out the ways in which we might learn from trees - but if you’ve read this far, you can probably make your own allegories. The links I want to make here are with spirituality and therapy. For me, some of the functions of trees are also true of counselling and spirituality. Spirituality helps us to take in things that are good for us and lose those things that damage us. Spirituality that is nourishing builds our self esteem. There is a danger in some of the more fundamentalist groups that we constantly hear how poor, wretched and impoverished we are. Fallen sinners bound for hell - unless we “accept Jesus”. Which might be a good thing but too often “accepting Jesus” means accepting the rules and commandments of the group making you that offer. No sex before marriage; no same sex relationships; at least a half an hour Quiet time a day; no women priests and definitely no woman celebrating the Eucharist! The list goes on. Add your own group’s small print. There’s lots of it! A healthy spirituality allows us to grow as people -in all our diversity.

So, I hear you say, what has all this got to do with counselling and psychotherapy? Do you spend your patient’s session talking about Nature? No! There are plenty of people better qualified than me. David Attenborough for one! W,B. Yeats wrote that we should find…

In all poor foolish things that live a day,

Eternal beauty wandering on her way.

For me this is an aspect of therapeutic work. To help my patients see Eternal beauty. In their own lives and those around them. In the natural world. In the built environment. As we appreciate our own inner beauty, so our seeing can spread. Freud spoke of making the unconscious, conscious. I think he and Yeats were saying something very similar.