What the Aspen Trees Know

Finding Balance in a World of Sorrow and Beauty

Recently, I stood on a mountaintop in Park City, Utah, surrounded by the trembling leaves of aspen trees. They shimmered in the late morning light like silver-green bells, each one moving gently, subtly, yet completely in tune with the strong breeze that passed through them and around me.

I had gone up on the mountain to find peace and be with difficult news I received that morning. But what I found was something more, offered freely by the aspens. In a time when the world feels on fire with grief, loss, and unraveling, they showed me how to stand steady in beauty, in presence, and even in joy.

The Unbearable Weight of Now

Every day, we are met with headlines that pierce the heart: lives lost in senseless wars, policies passed that tear at the fabric of human dignity, families grieving loved ones, whole communities navigating disorientation and despair. The collective nervous system of the world feels frayed and threadbare.

And yet, above it all, on the mountain, the aspens shimmer.

They do not look away. They do not numb themselves or collapse in despair. They simply respond. They move with the wind, in full-bodied presence. Not resisting. Not clinging. Just dancing.

There was something in that shimmer that reached deeper than the hard news I received that morning. Something ancient and healing. A kind of wisdom that whispered:

“Be still. Be with it all. Let yourself feel. But do not lose yourself.”

The Embodied Presence of Trees

What I saw in the aspens wasn’t passivity—it was deep receptivity. A kind of intelligent alignment with the flow of life. They are rooted, connected at the root system in a community of support. Above ground, each trunk rises slender and strong, while the leaves respond in real time to the moment.

There was no resistance. No collapse. Just presence. Graceful, surrendered, alive.

This, too, is what we are called to become. As life dismantles and dissolves what no longer serves, we are invited into new ways of being—ways that are more responsive than reactive, more attuned than overwhelmed.

Finding Balance in the Midst of Suffering

In the face of immense human pain and uncertainty, how can we stay open without becoming undone? How can we act wisely and move with compassionate action while heartbreak, anger or sadness are here?

The aspens offer a path. Here are three simple, powerful steps I’m exploring these days:

1. Return to Embodiment

Just as the leaves respond to the wind through their flexible stems, we can meet the moment through the body. When we feel emotions swell—grief, fear, anger—we can return to the breath, to the feet on the earth, to the feeling of being held in gravity.

As David Whyte writes:

“The antidote to exhaustion is not rest. It’s wholeheartedness.”

Embodiment is the first doorway to wholeness. It allows us to be here now, not lost in the swirl of the mind, but rooted in the truth of this breath, this body, this moment.

What Embodiment Really Means

To embody is to come home—not to an idea, or a concept, but to the living, breathing aliveness of the body. It means feeling your feet on the earth, the breath inside your lungs, the warmth or heaviness in your chest. It means not escaping into the stories of the mind, but settling into the truth of this moment, as it is, in the body.

The aspens teach us this. They don’t theorize about the wind—they respond to it. Their shimmering is not abstract. It is a felt, living expression of connection. They are not resisting life. They are meeting it, moment to moment. My friend Victor just shared with a group of us on Saturday that he is exploring living with less filters, less thinking, and more direct feeling. This is what I learned from the trees.

When we are embodied, we’re no longer spinning in the mind, trying to fix, figure out, or escape. We are present. Available. Grounded. From this place, we can feel grief without being swept away. We can act with clarity rather than reactivity. We can rest into what is true, and let it guide us forward.

In this way, embodiment becomes a threshold space. It allows us to stay in the fire of this world without burning out. To stay open in love, even when our hearts are breaking.

As I stood among the aspens in Utah, I felt this truth in my bones:
To be embodied is to be in relationship—with the earth, with the wind, with each other, and with the deep intelligence that lives beneath all that we are taking in right now.

2. Reconnect to What Is Timeless

The shimmer of aspen leaves reminds us of something beyond the horror and shock of what is happening in the world today—something eternal and unshakable. In nature, we can re-enter the rhythm of the sacred, the slow intelligence of trees and rivers and sky.

Even as unimaginable floods break our hearts, and the world crumbles in places, the earth still turns. The moon still rises. The wind still moves through the trees.

The poet John O’Donohue wrote:

“When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.”

To remember what is timeless is to lighten that weight. To soften back into the presence that was always here. We do that to attain balance, to calm our mind and bodies, to be able to see clearly a path of compassionate, wise action.

3. Let Beauty Move You

Beauty is not frivolous. It is essential medicine in times of despair. The shimmer of an aspen leaf, the curve of a bird in flight, the hush of dusk settling over a field—these are not distractions. They are the balm and the mirror, the reminder that joy still lives in the world.

When we let beauty in, it softens the tight places in us. It restores our capacity to love, to respond, to care.

The Way Forward

As I returned from the mountain, I carried this with me: the feeling of standing still in the trembling presence of a thousand dancing leaves, held by a circle of wise elders. The invitation to be just as I am—soft, strong, awake. Moved by the wind, but not undone by it.

We are in a time of great undoing, yes. But also, a time of remembering. The trees remember. The earth remembers. And somewhere deep within, so do we. It is our true nature to remember.

“I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding.”
—John O’Donohue

Where have you found inspiration in nature, or a glimpse of timeless beauty that helped you remember the truth that is always flowing along with the suffering? Do you have routines or rhythms in your life that keep you connected to the timeless, and return you to the present?

“Embodiment is not a concept. It’s a return to relationship—with the breath, the ground, the wind, and the truth of being alive.”

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