Gratitude for Trees and Forests

We express our hopes that the forests of the world may thrive and be recognized and honored as our precious givers-of-life. We offer thanks to the ancient trees who most ably restore our atmosphere by taking up excess carbon and who nurture the thousands of beneficial life-forms who surround them. We feel the blessings and the healing received from individual trees who have touched us, and we offer our gratitude for their magnanimity.  We speak our strong intention that the forests of the world may flourish, and we ask for the release from our human collective of all the ignorance and greed with respect to the trees, so that the forests may be preserved and protected from exploitation. We offer thanks for the humans who are planting and protecting trees and who are finding ways to receive the gifts of trees without devastating the forests.

We acknowledge our deep debt to the trees which have fed and sheltered our human family, which warm and heal us, which give us paper and houses, dishes and furniture, musical instruments and boats, and more gifts than we can remember or count. We accept each breath as a gift from the trees.

And we rededicate ourselves to being, like many of our ancestors, in profound and reverent relationship with these, our wise elders.

Prayer of the Woods:

I am the heat of your hearth on the cold winter nights, the friendly shade screening you from the summer sun, and my fruits are refreshing draughts quenching your thirst as you journey on. I am the beam that holds your house, the board of your table, the bed on which you lie, and the timber that builds your boat. I am the handle of your hoe, the door of your homestead, the wood of your cradle, and the shell of your coffin. I am the bread of kindness and the flower of beauty. 'ye who pass by, listen to my prayer: Harm me not.--1000 year old Portuguese prayer.