By Phil Wood
We built our home in Franktown 35 years ago. Sometime shortly after we moved in, we discovered this oddly shaped ponderosa pine hidden in a clump of scrub oak just a little ways off from our west deck. Strange, we thought. What in the world could have made a tree grow like that? Then we promptly forgot about it, until just a couple of months ago when we visited our friends, Jim and Cathy.
After giving us a tour of their new greenhouse, Jim and Cathy took us on a little tromp through the woods and showed us a tree they had just discovered. It was a huge, old ponderosa pine with several large branches that came horizontally out from the trunk and then took 90-degree turns upward.
Strange, we thought. What in the world could have made a tree grow like that? Then they told us they believed it was a Native American Prayer Tree. It turns out the Utes, who occupied our area until a hundred years or so ago, had a practice of modifying ponderosa pine trees for practical and spiritual purposes. They would bend them and tie them off as the trees were growing and continue to modify their growth as the years went by.
"Google it," they said. "There's all kinds of information online about Native American Prayer Trees. There's a whole book about them. And there's even a park in northern El Paso County with trails where you can walk around and see lots of different examples of these trees."
It was right about then that I caught my breath. You know, it was one of those times when you suck your breath in because you just realized something amazing and wonderful. "Oh my gosh," I said. "I think we might have a tree like that at our place!" Could this be the answer to a 35-year-old mystery?
Well, we made our excuses and left immediately, drove too fast, and upon arriving home, walked straight to the west end of our house, down the little hill to the clump of scrub oak, peered in, and there it was.
We walked closer and saw what could be ligature marks in the crook where the tree bends upward. We walked around to the other side and saw it wasn't just one tree but two, grafted together and twisting together toward the sky.
Now, no expert has come and confirmed that this is a genuine culturally modified Native American Prayer Tree. But I'm going to go with that for now.
In his book, Native American Prayer Trees of Colorado, John Wesley Anderson says, "Whether the UPT [Ute Prayer Tree] was intended for navigation, medicinal, nutritional or burial purposes, the Ute tree cultivation practices and traditions were interwoven with their spiritual beliefs, and prayers [were] offered to the Creator during each of their tree modification practices."
"The Ute believe all living things in nature were and are intertwined and when they pray around a Prayer Tree it carries their prayers up the tree towards the Creator where their prayers become intermingled with prayers of their ancestors who prayed around that particular Prayer Tree... When the breeze blows the Ute feel the Ponderosa's pine needles gently release their prayers which are carried by the wind across the land for the next 800 years (the lifespan of a ponderosa pine tree)."
That's not exactly what I believe, but I get it. And I think it's beautiful.
The other day (the day I took this picture), I decided to sit with my Creator at the prayer tree and pray. I sat where others had connected with their Creator centuries ago. I sat in silence for a good long time, long enough for all the "noise" of my day to quiet down, long enough to become still and recognize the presence of God in me and in everything all around me.
I've been busy. I've been distracted. It's been a while since I've felt that close to God. And it was very, very good.
Lord, God, Creator and Sustainer of all that is, I pray for all my brothers and sisters in Christ, that they will find some sacred ground, take some sacred time, attain stillness, see your glory all around, recognize the gentle movement of the Spirit in their souls, know your peace, and draw nearer to you. Amen.
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