On meeting a tree in Alex Park

On meeting a tree in Alex Park In the winter of 1970 when I was in my final year at the University of Manchester me and my girl friend split up and soon after I moved into a bedsit in Whalley Range and had a miserable time for about 3 months. I nearly quit my course – Computer Science – and indeed missed the mock exams just after Christmas. I walked around the streets and Alexandra Park restlessly. I remember walking late night about 3am when I couldn’t sleep and being stunned by the dawn chorus. Then one day in March I was walking in Alex Park and a tree was light up with the energy of Spring. This touched me deeply- I would now say to my very soul - and raised my spirits. This was a turning point for me in more ways than one. I had been touched by nature before. The first time I saw the Highlands of Scotland in Summer 1969 I felt a love but this tree had a deeper effect on me. I spoke to my cousin Ben who was doing Literature and he said ‘Wordsworth’. He was right Wordsworth spoke to my condition, to use a Quaker phrase. And like Wordsworth nature became my teacher. Later I would become aware of the energies present at sacred sites and religious buildings. (And of course, the energies between people but that is another story!). A few months later I was walking near my family home in Habberley Valley and nature was around me and a voice speaks inside me and says ‘Love is the essence of being’. I didn’t understand what these words meant at the time and perhaps I still only provisionally understand. My religious beliefs, my personal theology, as it were, comes from my encounter with this tree. It took me a long time to reconcile these experiences of mine and their impact on me with religion but again another story.