My lessons from a nurse tree

Embracing the fear of transformation

“Let me fall if I must fall. The one I am becoming will catch me.”

- Baal Shem Tov

Years ago, I knew deep in the soil of me, that I needed to compost and rot what was no longer me, but I was uncertain about how to do it or if I could endure the process. So, I ventured into the woods seeking guidance.

I wanted to find a Nurse Log—a fallen tree that fosters new life through its decay. I had read about them in a book once; how they serve as cradles of rebirth, their decomposing bodies nourishing young trees that would eventually rise above the forest floor. I believed they might teach me something about letting go and transformation.

The trail wound deeper into the woods than I had intended to go. Leaves and needles cushioned my steps, the scent of earth and moss filling my lungs with each breath. I wasn't sure what I was looking for exactly—perhaps permission to fall apart, to let the old structures of my life crumble away.

When I found her, the Nurse Log was magnificent in her surrender. Once a towering cedar, now horizontal, her bark peeling away like abandoned armor. Bright green moss carpeted her length, and a row of hemlock seedlings stood like sentinels along her spine. Mushrooms erupted from her sides—turkey tails fanning out in concentric rings of brown, cream and blue. They were the forest's alchemists, turning death back into life.

I sat beside her, this fallen elder of the forest, and pressed my palms against her softening wood. The boundaries between us seemed to blur—her patience seeping into my restless heart. How long had she been here, I wondered, slowly dissolving back into the soil that once nourished her? Ten years? Fifty? A century?

“The ground's generosity takes in our compost and grows beauty! Try to be more like the ground.”
― Rumi

"I am afraid," I whispered to her, feeling foolish and yet completely seen in this confession. The words hung in the damp air between us. "I am afraid of what falls away when I stop holding on."

A Robin landed on a nearby branch, tilting their head as if considering my dilemma. The forest continued its quiet work around me—water trickling somewhere unseen, insects buzzing in lazy circles, the distant tap-tap-tap of a woodpecker.

I pressed my palms flat against the log, feeling the cool dampness beneath my skin. Once, she stood reaching toward sky, collecting light through needle and branch. Photosynthesis—that ancient alchemy—transforming sunbeams into sugar, carbon dioxide into oxygen. Her cells organised in perfect rings, each one a calendar marking drought years and abundant springs, once living tissue, a cathedral of cellulose and lignin that had stood sentinel through countless seasons. She grew alongside sisters, their roots intertwined beneath the forest floor, sharing nutrients through mycorrhizal networks—the wood-wide web that connected them all.

Now those very molecules were surrendering their structure, an unraveling so elegant it could only be called grace.