The Fairy Podcast with Winslow Vail

Episode 5: The Tree Pilgrimage: Communicating with Trees and the Nature Kingdom with Molly Cusick

• Winslow

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In this episode, we sit down with Molly Cusick, the creator of The Tree Pilgrimage. Molly's journey began when a redwood tree sent an image to her mind’s eye during a dream. This moment sparked years of listening to trees from around the world. Now, Molly guides listeners into the realm of tree communication and connection. She teaches how trees communicate through imagery, dreams, and a felt sense.

Molly provides a clear, practical guide to tree communication, filled with tools and exercises you can start using right away. She teaches you how to ground yourself, visualize roots to connect with trees, and become aware of the images, sensations, scents, and subtle sounds that form a shared language with these beings. Molly shows you how to adapt your approach to each tree's unique personality, how to ask for permission, and how to interpret your body’s responses as clear guidance. With warmth and clarity, she encourages you to view the forest as a community of individuals rather than mere background scenery. 

She then takes you to the edge of the unseen. Molly shares her fairy experiences, including an encounter with a long-limbed fairy beside her car at dusk, feeling a double “bubble” of energy that requires a spoken request to enter, and a watchful fairy who accompanies her until she leaves the forest. Throughout these experiences, she emphasizes the importance of discernment - protecting your tender moments, sharing them only with those who will appreciate them, and trusting the subtle ways your intuition communicates with you. 

If you’re curious about tree communication and the subtle magic of the Nature Kingdom, Molly serves as your guide and teacher in this journey, offering both wonder and a practical toolkit.

About Molly Cusick

Molly is a photographer, potter, Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapist, and adventurer whose life changed when the trees began speaking to her through image and dream. In 2018, she followed a call from deep within her heart and began The Tree Pilgrimage, a journey of visiting, listening to, and photographing extraordinary trees around the world. Through this years-long communion, Molly developed a clear, embodied method for connecting with trees through sensation, imagery, and intuitive listening.

Join The Tree Pilgrimage: https://www.thetreepilgrimage.com/about

Explore Molly’s Tree Deck featuring a booklet with the wisdom, meditations, and messages of 25 trees: https://www.thetreepilgrimage.com/printshop

See Molly’s Photography: www.mollycusickphotography.com

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Music Credits: "Canon in D" by Johann Pachelbel performed and recorded by Winslow Vail. 

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Fairy Podcast with Winslow. My name is Winslow Vale, and I'm the founder of Fairy School. I'm here to create a safe space for you to explore your imagination, your heart magic, and the mysteries of the fairy worlds. This is a perfect time for you to connect with the fairies, to ask questions, share your dreams, and discover fairy practices and stories that can help you build more self-love, healthy happiness, and inner calm. The fairies are so glad you are here. As we begin, we invite you to take a deep breath into your belly, to relax your body, and to feel the curiosity flowing in your heart. Now, slip into your magical fairy clothes, feel your wings gently unfold, and awaken your fairy senses as you learn, imagine, and grow at fairy school. Today you'll hear from Molly Kiesick, who created a project called the Tree Pilgrimage, and she's going to tell you about this amazing project while also teaching you the basic steps for communicating with the trees and the tree spirits around you. And Molly also has a couple very special, very cool stories with fairies of the forest. And so this is a perfect time to get a cup of tea, to get cozy, and to listen and learn from Molly and her heartfelt wisdom. Hello, Molly, and welcome to the fairy podcast. Hi, I'm so excited to be here. It's so good to have you here. And you are amazing and you do so many different things. And would you start with sharing with us and the fairies and the nature spirits and the children listening a little bit about the things you do, and then we'll dive into some of the the tree fairy stories that you have.

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. So I am a cranial sacral therapist, which is a type of body work. I'm also a photographer and a potter. And uh about seven or eight years ago now I started a project I call the tree pilgrimage, and the trees started calling to me um to come be with them and listen to what they have to say, the share, the wisdom that they have to share. And um I was connected with the trees when I was little, but I kind of got disconnected from them in um for a big chunk of my life and then kind of got reconnected back when this project started. So those are the few things that I do.

SPEAKER_01:

So cool and so beautiful. And for the tree pilgrimage, I I'm almost imagining that who's ever listening, you can imagine that you're in a forest or by the trees, a special tree. And so while Molly's sharing with us about the tree pilgri pilgrimage and tree wisdom, it's like you we can imagine that we're in our own forest together learning. Because if we are in person, we we would be outside with you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so um but with the trees, yeah. I would go specific trees started to come to my dreams, and I would go on a little treasure hunt to find them and sit and listen to the wisdom they have to share. And so I've been to many forests all over the US and New Zealand so far.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. And so when the trees would come to you, would how, like the first tree that came to you, how did it come to you? Did you hear a whisper? Did you have a dream, an image, something else?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so the first, um, so uh basically what happened is I wanted to do a photography project, shooting the trees, um, especially because of you know climate change, and and so I started to feel like I really wanted to get to the trees before a lot of the big beautiful ones were gone. And as I was going up to do my first tree set, um, my my first part of the project, I chose to be with the Redwoods, and on my way up to the Redwood Forest, um, I was waking up from a dream, and the tree that I call the tree of depth, um, basically it was almost like he texted a selfie of his in an image of himself to my third eye, and it flashed as I was waking up, it flashed into my mind's eye um several times. Uh, and it was the first time that anything like that has happened to me, and so I didn't quite know what was going on, but it was really interesting to have this image like just appear out of nowhere, and um I sat and meditated and connected with the image and asked if this is the tree that I'm meant to go um see, and he replied, and so um this first one wasn't exactly a dream, but it was as I was coming out of a dream, and then the connection through meditation, um, it did have kind of a voice at that point, but not all the trees will um connect with me through like uh I I don't always hear them, it's more of a felt sense.

SPEAKER_01:

That's so beautiful, and and so when you're connecting with the trees and and it and the it sounds like that it's a specific tree often in a forest that connects with you, calls to you. Is that the case? Yeah or so.

SPEAKER_00:

The first tree that came, the tree of depth, he basically brought me to this forest where then I I got introduced to a whole bunch of other trees, um, other redwood trees in the same forest. And so that often happens when um one tree calls me to a place, it isn't only that one tree that's gonna want to connect. So um sometimes they'll they'll come um like people will come up to me and start talking to me about a tree. Sometimes it comes through a dream. It just it depends. So each tree is different, so they're just like people where they all have different personalities, they have different gifts that they share, and um, so each experience with it with each tree has been just a little bit different.

SPEAKER_01:

And I love Molly how you you said in the beginning it's like a treasure hunt because you're using your intuition, your heart, your senses, because it's not always the same how you connect with the trees or how they share information.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, exactly. It's it's been a wild journey. Um, because in like I said, in the beginning, it was like a many of many of them did come through dreams, and and one of them I had to go kind of in it was a process. So um this spruce tree was that after I left the redwood forest, the next tree that came was the spruce tree, and um it showed me like the area that it was in in a dream, and that and it was very general, so I was just seeing this river and these like kind of a mountainscape, and then um so I got a general sense, and then the next dream I had, it was um it was kind of a long and involved dream, but I figured out from the dream that I needed to get a pouch, and with the pouch, then I needed to walk in the area where this tree was and talk to the plants. So I asked the plants along the trail who wanted to be, you know, part of this project, this um this little ritual, and then I took parts of these plants that agreed and let me have a little bit of their flower or their leaves, and then I slept with that underneath my pillow, and then that night the actual tree showed me um like the the true image of himself. So it was quite a process with that one, and then other times it's been um, you know, I just knew that there was a place uh on a map that I needed to go to, and I just didn't know what I would find, um, what kind of tree or um the environment, like it it just it changes each time.

SPEAKER_01:

That is is so special, and and when you're then when you finally discover the tree or that first tree, do you often sit at its base? Do you stand? It's kind of like how are you then with the tree in person?

SPEAKER_00:

So um the all along the project it's been an evolution, and in the beginning, I kind of felt like there were these set rules and I had to follow this particular way, and and I really learned that I needed to be a lot more flexible and roll with it. So um on the second leg of the journey, that was a much harder um part of the project. Like I felt like my intuition got turned off and the dream stopped coming, and so I was really struggling with my intuition and like figuring out um where I was supposed to be and how I was supposed, you know, how it was gonna um unfold. And um this one particular tree, um I just there was a place that I needed to go to, and um when I got there, it turns out like two nights before someone had sat down and started talking to me about a large tree um and how much they love large trees, and uh they're the only tree that drops their needles. I didn't know that at the time. Like I know very little about the scientific information about trees, and so every time I meet a tree, it's like a new um experience where I kind of learn about what different trees there are, and uh it's it's kind of a funny um thing to not know like the specifics, but um that that interaction really helped me because I I would have been concerned when I got there that they were dropping all their needles, like I would have thought that maybe the tree was dying, and it turns out it was just losing its needles.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my goodness, Molly.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's like, oh, thank goodness this man sat down and talked to me about lunch trees.

SPEAKER_01:

And you and you and yet you got the information when you needed it right before. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm imagining if we were with you in person and we were outside and you know, with either one-on-one or with a group, what would be ways that you would teach us or encourage us to learn how to listen to the trees or to talk with them?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Um, so I I always like to say, you know, we're of nature just like trees are of nature. And so when we connect with our body, we that's how we connect with trees. And so um the I have a process that I use, so I have about 13 steps. And um, but to make it a little bit easier, what I like to do is I start out like grounding and really slowing my energy down because trees' vibrations go very slowly. So if you're racing around and you're moving really fast, it's gonna be super hard to connect with the tree because they're going really slow. And if you're buzzing all around, it's really hard to connect with buzzy running around with very slow energy. So, what I like to do is I like to get nice and still, slowing my energy fields down, and then I connect my energetic roots, so I just imagine roots coming out of my feet and my legs, and they're going into the ground, and then they're finding the tree's roots energetically, and it's almost like holding hands. So we're sending roots down, and then roots are holding um tree's roots, and then you just sit and listen. And sometimes I'll get images in my mind's eye, sometimes I'll hear um different things in inside, or I'll just feel an energetic um sensation come through my body, and later on, sometimes I'll be able to translate what that meant, or what what the tree was showing me, because oftentimes it's more that they're showing energetically what's going on rather than actually speaking words. So if you don't hear them, you can feel them, or you can smell them, you know, you use all of your senses.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. It's so beautiful, and I love how you shared how it you can, it's like you get find your stillness, yeah, quiet your breath, and then to imagine the roots connecting, like holding hands.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And so some trees like to connect through the roots, and then sometimes I found um so I got a little off track on that last story. Um, I forgot what I was talking about, and uh, there was one tree that um I was trying to connect and trying to connect, and I was sending my roots down and I was doing all the things that I thought were the way to do it, and it was a Ponderosa pine. And um finally I just got this feeling like stand up, you know, because oftentimes I'll sit first. And then um, so I got this like, okay, I need to stand, and I got closer to the tree, and then I just felt my body tipping forward and my third eye just like landed into the needles. All of a sudden, there was like, oh, hello. I was like, I was so frustrated because for so long I was like being really stubborn. And I'm like, it's both I'm supposed to connect through the roots because for whatever reason I had decided that's how you do it. And um, so it was it was a really funny moment because I was like, oh duh, you know, like I had to be more open energetically to, you know, like we're meeting a whole new person. Like some people like to hug, some people don't want to be touched, you know. It's the same. Some trees don't like to be touched, some trees want you to like put your whole body up against their trunk. It just depends. And um, this particular one was like, I'm not talking to you until you put your third eye on my needles.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I love that because it's just it's that it's there's like the fun and the play in that too, and that it's different for every tree and every situation.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Yes, yeah. So it's it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like so if anyone's listening, you might want to do a cartwheel under the tree, and then that's perfect for you in that tree.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, exactly. So follow your instincts, listen to that little voice inside or that feeling inside that's telling you to do whatever is telling you to do, and then see what happens.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I love that, Molly. Thank you. And before we wrap up, I know that you've had a couple fairy experiences through your this project with the trees. Yeah. So it would be so fun to hear those if you'd like sharing.

SPEAKER_00:

I would love to share. So, what what's been so special to me, like I've always felt kind of connected to the fairies, and I hadn't, you know, most of my life I hadn't ever seen one or really felt one until this project started. Like it's something opened up inside. And um, as I opened my like system to the communication of the trees, it kind of it's almost like it lifted a veil so that I could see into um, you know, those subtle realms that we're connected to, but we don't all you know obviously um see all the time. So um with the with the three fairy, like very distinct fairy encounters, um, the first one happened, again, it's kind of a funny story. Um, I got this feeling, so when I was in the Jededi Smith Redwoods, I got this feeling like I needed to go in the evening, even though it was kind of not a great idea to be in the forest at night. Um, because you just never know what you're gonna encounter. But I got a very clear feeling like I was supposed to go in and do a trace it, like more in the time of like when the sun's going down. And um, our teachers talk about uh how in the twilight times the veils are thinner. So I think that's what happened. And when I was leaving that evening, um there I was driving out of the forest and I saw this movement out of the corner of my eye, and I looked and I have never been so shocked to see as I'm driving this long-limbed fairy running through the forest alongside the car. Like, oh my god. What a way. So he was kind of further into the forest. Like he's like probably I don't know how many feet, but he he wasn't like right up next to the car, but he's running really fast and kind of looking over at me as I'm driving. And Jedi Smith Redwoods is like dirt road, it's really kind of rustic out there. It feels like you're really immersed in the forest. And um, he had, as he was running, he had like really long arms and fingers and really long legs, like super lanky. And it was like the most classic fairy I've ever seen. Like big pointy hat. Like the hat was like kind of a red felty hat and like big nose. And um, so he looked kind of goofy, and I just could not believe it that I was seeing it with my eyes. You were in shock and awe. I was in shock and awe. Yeah. And it and it just felt so magical. And I really attribute it, like I said, I really attribute to um just when you're when you're in that quiet, slow space with the with nature, with the trees, it just opens something. Um, it opens something up, and then these special little experiences can happen. So it's really cool.

SPEAKER_01:

And um, that's an amazing, that's an amazing one.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it was really cool. Uh, so that was kind of at the beginning, and then the more recent ones, I mean, it was a while ago because I was in when I was in New Zealand, but there's a special forest called the Yordawoda Forest, and it's really um, really magical. It feels like a very untouched forest. Um, and there's huge, vast amounts of land that are just forest land. And this one particular trail um was where I saw both of these two other fairies. It were different times that I was on the trail, but uh it was a really interesting experience because the first one I um I was going on this trail and I was pretty far in. And as I was hiking, I noticed that I stepped through something. It was almost like I went into a another bubble. Like uh I oftentimes when I'm going into a forest, I'll kind of feel like there's this like energetic, um uh like I wouldn't say barrier, but kind of a boundary. And when you walk through it, if you're if you're paying attention, you can feel that. And it's almost like um the air is just a little bit thicker.

SPEAKER_01:

Kind of like a doorway, like a doorway you walk through.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yeah, it's like a doorway into the energy of the forest, and it's like this big cohesive bubble. And this part, I'd already kind of come into the forest bubble, but then there was this extra bubble. This doesn't happen very often for me, where I'll feel like a second boundary, but I walked through it and I went, Oh, this is different, like the land here, like something I just I just went through into another zone. And so I I stopped and I kind of looked around and I just had a feeling like I needed to ask permission. So I kind of took a few steps backwards, more towards like where I felt like the um the barrier, the boundary was, and I just offered up that I'm here in peace, I'm here um with respect and reverence, and I'm just passing through. Is it okay? And I got this feeling inside that kind of felt like a yes. Um, when I get a yes in the body, it's kind of like this lifting up in my heart and this energy kind of opening. Whereas when I get a no, it's more like kind of a a um constriction, like a clenching down in the belly. So I got a yes, and as I started to walk further onto the path, all of a sudden I felt this energy, this being kind of jump onto the back of my backpack. And it was I was giving him um a little ride. So it was it was their home. And um, I I got the sense that he didn't quite trust that I wasn't going to do something, you know, to his space. And um, so I just kept reassuring them that, you know, I'm I'm just passing through. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01:

You had a little lookout on your backpack.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Just like making sure that I behaved. I think. I don't know. I we didn't have a full conversation, but I very distinctly felt them riding on my backpack. And as soon as I left that that area, again, I felt this kind of like I went through this like viscous little energy bubble, like I went through another doorway and they hopped right off. And so that was a really interesting experience. Came along for the ride.

SPEAKER_01:

They joined you for the little the the inner bubble moment.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yeah, took me on a tour of their home. And um, the third one was really wild. So this this next fairy encounter happened after a pretty deep experience with one of the trees I sat with, um, where I I was hearing this um this drumming, and um I was pretty deep into the forest. So, and I was all by myself, like nobody else was there. Again, this this part of New Zealand, like not a lot of people go there, and um it there's a lot of forest. And so I started hearing this drumming, and I was like, wow, that's really strange because I don't understand who would be out here with a drum. And it kept going, and then as I dropped deeper into meditation, all of a sudden I was kind of taken into I wouldn't say the underworld, but a underworld. And it was like the roots of the tree, like down in the ground. There was this other realm, and I stood by this doorway and the tree's roots, and the drumming got louder, and um, I just stood there listening. It just and so there's something about shadow work. I call that tree um the shadow dancer, and I really felt like there was like this um this uh resonance and some kind of um exchange was happening about shadow, but I really still haven't fully unpacked it. But it was it was a very deep experience to be taken somewhere. I I've never in a tree set been like wholly taken. Um intense. Yeah, yeah, it was a lot. So I was still kind of coming back from that experience, and as I was going down the trail, it's pretty dark um because I'd stayed longer than I expected. And so I was walking pretty quick because this this forest I didn't really want to be in um too far after dark. And all of a sudden, I felt a very distinct presence, and it was uh it was almost like there was an outline, like it was almost like I could see something in my mind's eye. Um, so I wasn't seeing it physically with my eyeballs, but I was seeing something. And so I just greeted them and said, Oh, hello, a friend, I hope. And they they kind of like it, it felt like they received that hello, like in a very friendly way. Like there was like a smile coming off of them, like an energetic smile. And um, all of a sudden, I started to feel this blissful energy like come. Um, it started at the feet and then it came up through into my whole body, my whole energetic being. And it was this beautiful, like it was like joy and um ecstatic, um, blissful energy, and it was like, wow, and and then um, and it was like being merged, like as one. And what I took away from that was the sense of like that's how this kind of fairy says hello, like you become one, so you like you intertwine, and then you really feel who they are at the essence. It was amazing. I I haven't had any experience like that since, but it was it felt really special.

SPEAKER_01:

It's oh it's so so incredible and so special. And I love how all of your experiences they are all a little bit different. It's like there's like you you you're using all of your senses and and you're and it's when it's like when you're you're helping us open the doorway to to these possibilities.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, it's like learning how how you how you receive information, like learning what your way of your intuition um it how it expresses, and then you just dive into that and you listen through your way of receiving.

SPEAKER_01:

That's so cool. Molly, doesn't also your last name how how do you pronounce your last name? Cusic. Cusic. I was like thinking it was like the key. Because it's like I'm thinking of you, yeah, like opening the doorways when you know these experiences that you've had are possible, then for everyone listening, so so much becomes possible.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. There there is so much um that we don't see with our eyes that we can experience when we really slow down and listen and engage and open with the nature kingdom.

SPEAKER_01:

Well Molly, I'm in such gratitude and thank you so much for sharing your your wisdom, your it's like you have such peace within you, joy, and I listening, I these are uh the stories and experiences that I'm so glad to have now and when I was five and six and seven and older, I would have loved to have because children are so like for everyone listening, you guys are so connected in already.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, is there anything when just kind of as we wrap up, if you think about yourself when you were little or younger, it also could have been middle school, high school, that you wish you'd known or you wish someone had reminded you or encouraged you about kind of in this realm of well, I I think about how you know, when I was little, when I was four and five, I I did have this affinity with trees, and I didn't know that. It was kind of different for other people. I just thought that everybody kind of had um a connection. And and I would talk with the trees. I wouldn't I I don't remember if I would hear them, but I remembered sharing with kids in the neighborhood about it. And I shared with with ones that I shouldn't have trusted. So um discernment I think is really important. Um because after I shared about how I connect with the trees, and I I there were these two trees that felt like they were like a masculine and a feminine, and they loved each other. And I shared that with somebody when with some of the kids in the neighborhood. They kind of looked at me like I was crazy, and then like told everyone that I was really weird and crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

And I I shut it all down because I I realized from that experience, I was like, oh, this isn't then you felt embarrassed and shamed and sadly about yourself. So you kind of closed the door a little bit.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. So I kind of turned it off and I didn't tell anybody about it anymore. And it wasn't until many years later that this whole experience with the trees opened back up again. And so I just want to say it how important it is to trust your intuition, but also be discerning at who you share deep vulnerability with.

SPEAKER_01:

That's so important. It's like when you feel safe in your heart, yeah. Then there's that safety, but not everyone not everyone is safe because it's everyone's looking through different sunglasses.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Yeah, everyone has a different experience and they don't necessarily know how to hold space for differences and otherness. So yeah, I think that's what I would share is like I I wish I had better discernment and that I didn't turn it off because of outside opinions.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you, Molly. That's so important.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for having me. This was such a joy to be able to share some of my stories and my experience.

SPEAKER_01:

So grateful. Thanks, Molly. Thank you for joining me and the fairies on our fairy podcast. It is an honor to have you with us. Take a moment to notice how much lighter and brighter you feel after connecting with the fairies and the beautiful energy of your own heart. If you want more opportunities to be part of fairy school, the fairies have some special gifts for you. They would love to offer you a free month of fairy letters filled with fairy practices, fairy news, and fairy wonders. The fairies and I would also love to offer you a free 30-minute coaching session where you can connect with your heart magic and inner sparkle even more. And we host a free fairy school class on YouTube live every Monday at 3 p.m. Mountain Time. You can find more information at winslowvale.com. We can't wait to share more fairy adventures, stories, and practices with you on our next episode. Thank you for listening. See you next time.