“There are no words,” I said to my partner Rick. He nodded in agreement as we gazed at the giant redwood towering before us. Unable to wrap our heads or our arms around the massive sequoia. It must have been at least 20 feet around and hundreds of feet high. My first introduction to the oldest, largest and tallest trees known to man.

In early June, we flew up to Northern California to experience the redwoods. We stayed in the charming coastal town of Trinidad located on an azure bay surrounded by rocky cliffs and dotted with fishing boats. Redwood forests stood to the east like colossal sentinels guarding the often foggy coastline.

We walked through the giant sequoias reaching for the sky. The forest floor was lush with ferns and rhododendrons blooming in every color. ‘Don’t you feel we have been transported? Like time travelers visiting a prehistoric era?” I asked Rick. He agreed, stopping periodically to put his arms around the massive craggy trunks absorbing their energy.

The forest was invitingly cool. My footsteps were muted by a soft carpet of needles on the forest floor, damp from the coastal mist that rolls in each morning. Spicy fragrances of earth and wood filled my lungs. Sunlight filtered through the towering trees’ canopy of sky-reaching branches as if through magnificent stained glass windows of the tallest natural cathedral you can imagine, creating a feeling of sacredness.

The silence was palpable. We found a place to sit and meditate near a stream quieting our minds and opening to the deep stillness and powerful energy gifted to us by the ancient forest.  

We spent several days walking among the redwoods. Some soar as high as 380 feet or six stories taller than the Statue of Liberty. Sequoia fossils have been found dating back 200 million years, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Can you imagine what they have seen?

A redwood might seem like a solitary being, but it has a shallow root system that extends over a hundred feet, intertwining with the roots of other redwoods for stability and survival.  An interdependence that is ancient and wise, creating far more abundance than each tree could individually. We humans could learn a few things from them. How unnecessary this human strife. The pettiness, polarization, competition, discrimination and war. In a hundred years, most of us will be gone and a whole new batch of humans will be here, probably doing the same things we are doing now.

But the redwoods, growing in connection and harmony, will endure.