The relationship between meditation and nature extends beyond simply enjoying a scenic view as the focal point of one’s practice, whether through forest bathing or relying on metaphors from the natural world for our practices like Dzogchen or shamatha. Our embodied essence is none other than soil, water, air, fire, and space. The body is composed of these elements, which will return to the outer elements once more. The mind is held by the container of the body while we are alive, but what about before our birth and after our death? While we are alive, it serves us to retain a close connection with nature as our kin, our respite, our resting place, and our original relationship. Nature provides medicine, space, creativity, and connection. What do we offer in return, besides our eventual corpse as nourishment?
For many, taking from the land includes first offering to it, be it gifts in the form of prayer, gratitude, sacred smoke, or movement. We are in partnership, a cyclical reciprocity, and we can remember this from those who have never forgotten. Just as we offer to a beloved or respected teacher in exchange for their patience and wisdom, we offer land when we wish to receive something in return. We do not harvest too much, too fast, or too often.
When I have been roaming the wilds of late, I spent time among the trees first, then asked each one to share a small branch, careful not to take only from those nearest to me on the trail. I wandered off the trail to commune first with mosses, fecund trunks, and unseen creatures, then felt my way through the forest pines. Young white pine (pinus strobus) needles are soft to the touch—unlike so many other conifers—offering gentle tactile caresses and a delicate scent as they wave in the almost imperceptible breeze of the darker understory.
I only recently learned of white pine medicine’s qualities. My Japanese herbalist friend shared one of her many secrets, which is that white pine needle juice is rich in vitamin C and other nutrients that come with its pungent bright green flavor. She is steeped in the wisdom tradition of plant healing, especially from her homeland of Japan. Herbalism and plant communion are bountiful here in the US, particularly in northern California, where I have been studying and relating to the plants for several decades. It all began from living in closed retreat. We often needed medicines we could not access. I turned to the land to see what grew locally and what I could learn about its medicinal properties from the single botanical book that we had on our kitchen bookshelf alongside the cookbooks.
These days, when one mentions “plant medicine,” people’s minds may turn toward entheogens such as ayahuasca, mushrooms, or peyote. I have written about the magical and spiritual qualities of the entire plant queendom, or kindom as some call it, because all plants have something to show us humans. We have become symbiotic over many millennia.
I recommend becoming intimate with your own local plants, with care of course. If you have the opportunity to try white pine needle juice, be careful with the sourcing. Not all pine varieties are safe to ingest, so proceed with caution. It also may be an acquired taste.
Here is some context from the website WebMD:*
People mainly describe the pine needle tea taste as piney — similar to the way pine needles smell. Many people find the taste pleasant. It shouldn’t overwhelm your palate.
What Is Pine Needle Tea Made Of?
All you need to make pine needle tea is a source of edible pine needles. A lot of pine varieties are safe to consume, including:
• Eastern white pine — Pinus strobus
• Japanese red pine — Pinus densiflora
• Himalayan cedar — Cedrus deodara
• Spruces
• Firs
The experience of imbibing plant juices or tinctures, or an infusion of plants one harvests oneself—taking loving care to harvest sustainably, thanking the plant for its offering, and taking the whole as an act of meditation—brings an aliveness and intimacy with flora and botany that is uniquely special, even sacred. This enactment of ancient relations and honoring is shared by peoples worldwide, and cannot be undervalued as a human animal in close connection with our environment. Recognizing these relationships brings harmony and meaning to our lives in this overly tech-based, metallic, modern experience.
At an important milestone in my life three years ago, my mother offered a white pine seedling to the earth in her garden, which has since doubled in size. Behind it stands the small stone Shinto shrine that she brought from her mother’s garden after her death. And so nature cycles, through generations of ancestors, of seedlings, of their interconnection, until death do us part, and far beyond.
May all beings experience their true nature as none other than the inseparability of the elements, subtle energies, and the continuity of what is unknowable and ineffable.
* Further reading: The Medicine of Pine (Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine)
See more
What to Know About Pine Needle Tea (WebMD)
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