Petrus, Jati, and Rhaka. May 15 2022. Taken by Rhaka.
I was inspired by Lucy Steinitz after attending her Tree of Life Workshop and asked her for consultation. The workshop was held online on March 20. I felt nostalgic when I read the words “Tree of Life”. It’s like something dear and connected to me. I remembered about the myth of Yggdrasil, tree of life and wondered how the image exists in different cultures and religions throughout the world. Then, we held a consultation on March 22. We learned about the facilitation of the tree of life: what to prepare, criteria of participants, and in-depth discussion of the material.
I (Rhaka), Petrus, and Jati organized an Indonesian Tree of Life online workshop on May 15, 2022. Our purpose is to experience the tool and practice how to facilitate it. We were excited.
Agenda of the workshop
- Welcome
- Stopping
- Opening: name and what I like about tree
- Becoming a tree (somatic experience of being a tree)
- Drawing a tree and telling the story of a tree
- Walk among the trees
- Closing: name and power I have for the community
The workshop lasted for three hours, cut short due to some of us having another appointment. We found out that we need to encourage participants to set up their places to be comfortable, and also to have tissues and a bottle of water handy. I also added grounding techniques in between story attempts. The workshop is full of emotion and empowering us through acknowledging our strengths and resilience. We have seen the wonder of trees: how they live and support each other in the forest. It reminded us of the community we live in and our connection to each other.
In welcome, we talked about the presence of trees in our own culture and traditions. The Javanese and Sundanese cultures, both originating from the Island of Java, have their own views of the tree. In Javanese, there are symbols of the sacred banyan tree and Gunungan in traditional puppetry. The gunungan is an essential feature of wayang kulit – one of the oldest cultural traditions of Indonesia and Malaysia. The gunungan is a leaf-shaped shadow puppet generally carved from leather. It represents the tree of life which connects the earthly world and that of the spirits. Jati mentioned that his name means teak tree, which originated from the acronym Jawa Tidore (Javanese born in Tidore). Meanwhile in Sundanese, I recognized the sacred goddess of rice named Sari Pohaci. Sundanese people also recognized two kinds of forest in their tribe. One is a forbidden forest which is sacred where no one may touch the trees or the soil. The other is the forest where trees can be cut and the soil can be stepped on. That’s their way to conserve forest as a natural reservation.
In becoming a tree, I noticed that there’s a natural urge to grow like a tree. As I noticed my hand reached up effortlessly. When we noticed the wind flowing past our bodies, our hands moved in harmony.
In drawing a tree and telling the story of a tree, we each tried it two times except for myself due to limited time. In our estimation, it’s just right to set a full online workshop with 3 times of tree story for 4 hours. We also noticed that we cried during the first attempt at tree story. The second time it became easier to tell the story. After the story, we went to walk among the trees and shared our reflections.
I’m amazed that the practice rooted in the tree archetype can draw up these deep emotions, and remind us of the roots of our ancestry. I somehow questioned humanity because of this. Humanity has been through a lot of adversity in the world. Our ancestors naturally found their own way to cope with this situation and wisdom to be given to generations. A power within us can use and channel this image of a tree into our consciousness and encourage us to work for it. This is the wonder I learned when facilitating Tree of Life.
We looked into our images of trees together. I wondered how it would be if there’s a storm coming and the tree is alone. The tree might be broken or blown away by the storm. And then, I asked how if there’s a storm coming and the trees are together. We can help each other, giving signals through our roots and letting the storm pass over. That’s what we have learned about resilience and community. We are living together in face of adversity. We can ask and offer for help, we are strong in ourselves and together. What’s important is that we allow ourselves to recognize our strength and face challenges in life.
We debriefed about what we have learned from the tree of life activity. Jati noticed that there is a similarity with the river of life activity. It made us tell our life story and find strength in us. We also notice that this workshop is more suitable offline because people need to focus and have a comfortable and safe space to work on it. It’s okay too if we hold it online. One thing to consider is that we need to prepare ourselves a tissue box, a bottle of drinking water, and a comfortable seat or couch to experience this online.
This opportunity to learn and practice has given us many insights to explore tools from AVP.