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13,1 Vision & Ideas 13,2 GroupCoaching 13,3 My Tree
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Secret 13,3 · Values / Needs · My Tree

My Tree

My life — my tree. From Egyptian mythology to the decorated plastic Christmas tree, the tree of life has never stopped meaning something. Draw yours, describe it in a haiku, and let two or three people you trust tell you only what is already visible.

The tree I choose will always reveal something about me.

A tree drawn by hand in crayon — a broad green crown, a pale trunk and roots spreading across the foot of the sheet, with a yellow sun and blue sky behind it — and a five-line poem written beside the trunk in Norwegian, opening and closing with the same word.
My life — my tree. One participant’s own tree, drawn, coloured and described the way the exercise on this page asks.

Since Egypt

The tree of life

ca. 3000 BC

In Egyptian mythology, the “tree of life” symbolises the boundary between life and death, and the cycle of eternal rebirth. The tree also represents the creation process of the universe.

ca. 900 BC

The tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden had fruits that could give man eternal life, reproduced in the story of Adam and Eve in the Old Testament / Genesis 2:19.

ca. 900 AD

Yggdrasil is the world tree in Norse mythology, an ash with branches that reach across the world and up into the sky. Yggdrasil is depicted in Norse literature in Snorri’s Gylvaginning.

ca. 1600 AD

The Christmas tree has roots back to southern Germany and Switzerland. Originally it was a Christian and symbolic custom where green trees represented “eternal life” and were decorated with apples.

The history of the tree of life stretches from ancient Egypt, via Norse mythology and biblical tales, to today’s modern Christmas tree. The symbol represents eternal life, the cosmos and fertility.

A decorated tree indoors in the evening, small lights through the branches and wrapped parcels on the floor around its base.
The oldest symbol on this page, still standing in living rooms — and almost nobody calls it that any more.

Intro film coming

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The technique

Spiritual visualisation

A woman holding a still yoga posture on a paved terrace between tall city buildings, the blocks rising on both sides of her.
The forest in the guide above is imagined. Where you actually are does not have to cooperate.

Spiritual visualisation sees the soul as the living energy between our outer and inner relationships. Like tension within a field, it is influenced by everything that changes around us. In this way, even seemingly small experiences gain depth and clarity when we dare to remain present long enough for the hidden to reveal itself.

Entering a spiritual visualisation can be compared to shaking a bottle of sparkling water without removing the cap. Pressure builds toward its highest point — yet the bottle holds.

One example

Meditation guide

In this moment, imagine that you are walking. You are on a path in a forest. You have been here before. You hear the birds chirping. You know the path and the flowers. Notice a special tree. Stop taking in all the impressions. Avoid judgement. Do not escape. Remain present within the tension. Stay open to the unknown. Be patient. Trust the process. Remain together until you remember everything.

My experience

I sit in a circle with people I barely know. My feet rest quietly on the floor. My body is calm. I feel like a small bubble in a vast universe. Then I hear a voice say: “You are walking along a familiar path. You see trees.” I see myself as a boy. I walk the road where I grew up. I see the enormous oak trees before our house. I sense the roots drinking from the stream. I see the mighty trunk and the great crown. I see my secret place, where the trunk was cut and new branches burst forth like fountains of life. I see my tree.

The meditation guide then asked us to open our eyes and take one of the large white sheets on the floor, and draw, colour and describe our own tree with a haiku poem, which consisted of the following order: (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 1) words, of which the first and last word should be the name of the tree. We experience directly how the energy that arises becomes visible through our relationships of trust and openness — here and now.

A tree drawn in loose pen scribbles — a dense crown of overlapping loops above a bare trunk and root lines, with a short handwritten Norwegian poem beside it and a 1998 date.
The drawing.

OLD oak, filled of new history and power and wisdom OLD

After finishing the drawings, the meditation guide asked us to sit together in groups of three, where we would take turns introducing ourselves by using the drawing, beginning each sentence with: I am… One example: I am my oak. My roots go back in age to the union with Sweden from 1814. The thick trunk is my Swedish family, which I neither can embrace nor climb. The crown is my Swedish grandparents who became Norwegian in 1905. The branches in all directions are my family in Norway. I sit in the middle of the tree. I am the oldest living, visible to all. I have four children and seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, and many relatives that I do not know. The acorns that sprinkle the garden in autumn can be the marked symbols by generations history.

I am “PETRUS” — I am “my oak”. I am “visible to all”. I am “marked by generations history”. I am “PETRUS”

Reading a tree

SGL interpretation

The tree, as an archetypal symbol of the deeper spiritual life, is as old as our culture itself. The long line of images of the Tree of Life — from Egyptian mythology nearly 3000 years before Christ to our own decorated plastic Christmas trees — tells the story of an unbroken tradition: from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden to Yggdrasil in Norse mythology.

It seems that all of us carry an image of a tree within us. That is why certain trees can touch us so deeply. It is as if an echo arises between the tree I see outside myself and the tree I carry within my own soul. The tree I choose will always reveal something about me. Sometimes it reflects things I already know. Other times it offers surprising hints of something hidden, covered over, or almost forgotten. Yet the tree will always tell me something good.

The tree, both as a metaphor and as an “icebreaker”, can be used during team gatherings or workshops where people wish to know each other on a deeper level than everyday conversation allows. To draw a tree — and to read the drawings — is like opening a book. The point is not to interpret too much, but simply to notice what is already visible.

A loose watercolour and pencil sketch of two bare winter trees at the edge of a snowy path.
Roots, trunk, branches, leaves, fruits — the same tree read five ways.

Roots

Whether you are connected to your origins and inner sources, or hiding or covering something.

Trunk

Your childhood, your physical or emotional wounds, or your need for protection.

Branches

Your feminine and masculine energies, reaching toward the light and searching for growth.

Leaves

Beauty and vulnerability, together with endless possibilities for growth and flowering.

Fruits

The journey of life and the richness that life has given you.

Which part of your own tree feels strongest right now? Pick one.

Mark which part of your tree feels strongest right now.

More about jobs and self-development in Secret 14 — Acceptance.

An open notebook and two sharpened pencils on a dark desk under the pool of light from a lamp, the page still blank.
The exercise wants a pen and paper, not a keyboard.
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Homework 13,3

Workshop in miniature

Design your own tree. Invite afterwards 2–3 people you feel safe with. Sit in a circle. You show them the picture of your own tree, and ask them to point out the obvious: what they hear, what they get fantasies about, and what they have a gut feeling about. Everyone listens when one of you speaks — no questions, no interruptions, no comments. Afterwards: what did you discover about your own tendency to interrupt, explain or defend?

Alongside this lesson

See, listen and learn with our SGL videos

Video coming Drawing your own tree, step by step Video coming The tree of life, from Egypt to Yggdrasil Podcast coming Click and listen to the podcast
SGL Secrets — For those who are in need, and those who want a lot!

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More about jobs and self-development in Secret 14 — Acceptance.

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