Sweet nectar from deep wounds

The forest is becoming one of my most important teachers. Recently, while walking among tall Ponderosa pines, I observed something quietly miraculous. A tree, clearly deeply injured - likely by some natural cause -- was oozing resin all along the wound. But not just any resin. This was the most colorful, iridescent, honey-like pitch I had ever seen. Its scent was strong and healing, almost holy. Sweetness, it turns out, can arise precisely where injury has occurred.

Isn’t that true for us, too?

In Buddhist teachings, we’re not asked to bypass suffering or run from pain. We’re asked to sit with it. We learn to witness our wounds with equanimity, neither suppressing nor indulging them. We are reminded that we are not our pain—not our thoughts, not our emotions—but rather the awareness that can hold all of it with tenderness and curiosity.

This equanimity doesn’t mean we become numb. It is the deep, steady presence of a heart that doesn’t flinch. It’s the wisdom of the forest floor, which receives every fallen needle, every decomposing body, and says, “Yes, you belong here too.” When we meet our own wounds this way—not rushing to heal, not avoiding, not over-identifying—we often discover something surprising: beauty. Compassion. Wisdom. The medicine we carry for others.

I often think of Chiron, the archetype of the wounded healer from Greek mythology. Chiron could not heal his own wound, yet it was that very wound that gave him the power to heal others. The paradox is humbling: our most painful experiences often become the portals to our deepest offerings. Like the Ponderosa’s resin, what emerges from the place of injury might just be our most radiant an dhealing nectar.

So perhaps we don’t need to hide our stress fractures, heartbreaks, burnouts, fear or rage. Perhaps our grief is not a flaw, but an alchemical site. What if we could learn to tend those raw places without rushing them into resolution? Could we, like the trees, simply allow the sap to flow?

This practice of tender witnessing—of staying close to our own pain without becoming fused with it—is not easy. But it is sacred. And it is necessary, especially in these times when so many of us are aching, weary, or lost.

So today, I offer this simple reminder: Let the resin flow. Let your wounds breathe. Witness them like the sky watches a storm—spaciously, without fear. You may be surprised by what beauty seeps through the cracks.

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