DW's Blog

More Tree Wisdom: On Singularity and Presence

by DW Green — July 23, 2025

“Trees model that kind of authentic, singular presence we’re all seeking.”

Yesterday my nephew gave me a beautiful leather-bound journal with pages that have torn edges. The cover is forest green with an embossed tree image, complete with leather binding and a green leather strap to close it. Since my handwriting is atrocious, I plan to print out my writings and glue them to the journal pages. As I was thinking about the journal and trees, I found myself contemplating singularity as a fundamental tree quality.Trees embody singularity in several beautiful ways:Individual uniqueness – No two trees are exactly alike, even of the same species. Each one carries the story of its particular soil, weather, struggles, and growth patterns. My palm trees each have their own character, their own way of swaying, their own bark texture.Wholeness – A tree is completely itself at every moment. It’s not trying to become something else or wishing it were different. There’s that quality of being singular, unified, complete as it stands.Present-moment existence – Trees live in pure “now-ness.” They respond to this season, this day’s light, this moment’s wind. They don’t worry about ...

by DW Green — July 16, 2025

“Trees stand as living proof that quiet persistence can move mountains—one root, one ring, one season at a time.”

There’s something that happens when I stand before a tree—any tree. Whether it’s the ancient oak in my neighborhood park or the slender birch swaying in my backyard, I find myself drawn into a world that speaks in whispers older than human language. The Language of the SensesTrees speak first through our senses. The earthy sweetness of pine needles crushed underfoot. The rich, loamy scent that rises from bark after rain. Each species carries its own signature fragrance—the sharp clarity of eucalyptus, the warm vanilla notes of ponderosa pine, the green freshness of maple in spring. Then there’s the texture that calls to our most primal curiosity.

by DW Green — July 9, 2025

“In surrendering control, we don’t lose power—we align with a power that transcends our limited perspective.”

Surrender is simply accepting the reality that we are not in control. When we set ourselves up to think we deserve, expect, or need certain things to happen, we are setting ourselves up for constant unhappiness and a final inability to enjoy or at least allow what is going to happen anyway. After a while, we find ourselves resisting almost everything at some level. It is a terrible way to live.But here’s the crucial insight: without awareness, we remain blind to our own controlling patterns. We can’t surrender what we don’t recognize we’re grasping.The Hidden Tyranny of Control Most of us live under the illusion that we’re managing life well, making reasonable plans, setting healthy boundaries. But awareness reveals a deeper truth: we’re often engaged in an exhausting, futile battle to control outcomes that were never ours to control in the first place. We try to control:

How others respond to us
The timing of opportunities
Our children’s choices and failures
The progression of illness or aging
Economic conditions and social change
Even our ow
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The Other Side of Leadership: Beyond Problem-Solving

by DW Green — July 2, 2025

“When the Other within you arrives, honor that part of yourself as a guest.”

To live with shadow awareness, we must follow the detours. We walk into the debris, groping our way through dark corridors and past dead ends. We search for the key in the most difficult places to find. Shadow work asks us to turn toward what we’ve avoided. It asks us to stop blaming others. It asks us to take responsibility.It asks us to move slowly and deepen our awareness. It asks us to hold paradox, to open our hearts, and to sacrifice our ideals of perfection. Most importantly, it asks us to live the mystery.We suggest approaching the shadow as a mystery rather than as a problem to be solved or an illness to be cured. When the Other within you arrives, honor that part of yourself as a guest. You may discover it comes bearing unexpected gifts. You may find that shadow work is, indeed, soul work.

Read More – The Greatest Kindness

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by DW Green — June 25, 2025

“What would it look like to hold our convictions strongly while remaining curious about our blind spots?”

I caught myself doing it again last week.I was scrolling through social media, feeling a familiar surge of righteous indignation at a political post. “How can they be so hypocritical?” I thought. “Don’t they see they’re doing exactly what they accuse us of doing?”Then it hit me: wasn’t I doing the same thing? Wasn’t I accusing them of the very behavior I was engaging in—pointing fingers while remaining blind to my own contradictions?This uncomfortable moment of recognition led me to what I’ve come to call the “purity trap”—a psychological snare that seems to be tightening around our political discourse, and one I suspect we’ve all fallen into more often than we’d care to admit.The Seductive Logic of PurityHere’s how the trap works: When we deeply believe in our cause—whether it’s social justice, individual freedom, environmental protection, or economic prosperity—we naturally want to see ourselves as the good guys. This isn’t inherently problematic. Caring about principles and values is part of what makes us human.But something curious happens when our identity becomes too tightly w...

by DW Green — June 18, 2025

“The spiritual truth remains: we can only give away what we have genuinely
experienced and become ourselves.”

We humans seem unable to define ourselves without creating an “other.” Our identity crystallizes not through self-knowledge, but through opposition and exclusion—we know who we are primarily by knowing who we are not.This tendency reveals itself in a persistent human question: “Where can my negative energy go?” We feel compelled to export our darkness, to project it outward rather than face it within. The tragic irony is that we rarely recognize the truth: we ourselves are often the source of the negative energy we see reflected back at us from the world.Our ego protects us from this uncomfortable recognition. It refuses to acknowledge its own role in perpetuating the very negativity it claims to oppose. This blindness keeps us trapped in cycles of projection, always finding new targets for our unexamined shadow.Breaking free requires what can only be called a foundational conversion—a transformation from the egoic self that sees only external threats to a deeper awareness that recognizes our own complicity. Few undergo this shift, and fewer still sustain it.The spiritual truth remains: we can only give a...

by DW Green — June 11, 2025

“Gratitude moves stagnant energy when we’re feeling stuck in life.”

Lakota author and activist Doug Good Feather writes about gratitude and generosity with wisdom that speaks to our deepest need for hope and connection. I connect with his words, and for a moment, clarity cuts through the noise of our divided world. In times when it feels easier to focus on what’s wrong, what’s missing, or what’s broken, his perspective offers a different path forward. I ask that you take a few minutes and read Mr. Good Feather’s thoughts on gratitude and generosity—wisdom we need now more than ever.“Each and every morning offers us a chance to start anew, fresh, and to begin again. Each morning when we wake— should we choose to listen—is a message from the Creator to remember the privilege we were given of waking up. It’s a reminder to get up and prepare ourselves, to honor ourselves, to go out into the world, to connect with Mother Earth and the hearts of other beings, to inspire and encourage those who cross our paths, and most importantly, to enjoy life.Gratitude and generosity are similar virtues, but they differ in that gratitude is an internal characteristic and generosity is our external expression of our sense of gratitude. Basically...

by DW Green — June 4, 2025

“So the next time you walk outside, remember: you’re not you’re not separate from any of it.”

“You’re not in the Universe, the universe is in you… Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.” – Eckhart TolleI’ve carried this knowing in my bones for as long as I can remember – that I am not separate from the rocks beneath my feet, the dirt between my fingers, the trees swaying overhead, or even the smallest bug crawling across my path. We are all expressions of the same cosmic story, temporary arrangements of the same fundamental elements that have been dancing together since the beginning of time.The Miracle of Stardust The iron in your blood was forged in the nuclear furnace of a dying star billions of years ago. The calcium in your bones was created in stellar explosions that scattered the building blocks of life across the cosmos. The water in your body has been rain, ocean, cloud, and river – flowing through countless forms before becoming part of you. You are quite literally made of stardust, and when you touch a rock or hold soil in your hands, you’re reuniting with family.The Paradox of ScaleHere’s what ...

by DW Green — May 28, 2025

“We exist only by chance, after all.”

Elsewhere in the universe, a star many times the mass of our third-rate sun is living out its final moments in a wild spin before collapsing into a black hole. Its final exhale bends spacetime itself into a well of nothingness that can swallow every atom that ever touched us and every datum we ever produced—every poem, statue, and symphony we’ve ever known. This entropic spectacle remains insentient to questions of blame and mercy, devoid of why. Holy Moly!In four billion years, our own star will follow its fate, collapsing into a white dwarf. We exist only by chance, after all.