About a week ago, it was a gray, blustery fall day, with stiff wind gusts scattering the leaves. As I walked back to my car, I noticed the oak in the corner of my backyard covered in bright yellow leaves glowing against the leaden sky. The tree was dancing exuberantly, flinging down its leaves with gleeful abandon to form a golden carpet on the blacktop. I gazed up at the tree in admiration, and suddenly felt it clasp me in a full frontal hug and pulse energy into me, almost like it had made love to me. I actually felt a warm glow, almost like sexual pleasure. I’m not lying. This was the weirdest experience, and it stuck with me the rest of the day. I would think of that dancing tree and feel uplifted…and turned on!

At the time, I also thought about my visit the day before to my favorite tree in the Arboretum. I haven’t seen ‘my’ trees there in months, so I drove over the day before the dancing oak experience and climbed the fence into the Leavintritt Garden with my camera. I greeted my tree and had a long, heartfelt talk with it, giving thanks for its beauty, wisdom, strength, and helping me when I needed a strong support. There’ve been times when I was in the Arboretum to practice t’ai chi when I was feeling weak or tired, or unfocused. I have called out to the trees there for help and strength while doing standing meditation, and I swear I have felt energy surge into me, coming from the earth up through my feet and into my whole body, rooting me to the ground. This is no lie. It has happened to me many times.

On this visit, I apologized to my tree for not having visited in so long. I took many photos of it from different angles, including some close‐ups of the lichen, moss, and other miniecosystems living in harmony on the tree. I clung to the tree’s one long horizontal limb that I can reach, and felt its strength. I didn’t need words; the tree and I understood each other.

So when the dancing oak embraced me the next day, I imagined that trees probably communicate with each other underground all the time, and that ‘my’ tree in the Arboretum had asked the oak in my backyard to give me a boost. And what a boost it was! I’ve always been a tree‐hugger, but that yellow oak hugged me back!