Moreover / A tree grows on the West Side
by Dea Hadar

January 28th, 2005

Tuesday noon, New York: Plantings. At the moment, Itzhak Beery is a cypress tree. "I don't know why, that's the way I feel now, like a cypress," he says. Beery a former Israeli aged 54, has an advertising and graphic design studio in Greenwich Village. He's also a shaman and as such tends to connect to the inner tree.

Itzhak Beery:
Every tree has a message.

"It's big, strong, odorous and has fruits. It's a giving tree," he says of the cypress. "But I also have a weeping willow inside me. We are all a variety of things."

Beneath the weeping willow in the yard of his Village home, Beery and his wife, a former dancer from the Bat Sheva Company, do "sun celebration" exercises every morning. Beery then hugs the melancholy tree. Isn't it hard to connect to Mother Earth in Manhattan?" "There are a lot of potted plants around me in the house, and trees," he says. "Sure I miss it sometimes, but you can find nature everywhere."

Beery, who moved to the United States after the election of Menachem Begin in 1977, always connected with the nature in which he grew up, on Kibbutz Beit Alfa, but it was only 11 years ago that he began to engage in shamanism, after taking part in a workshop like the one he himself now runs. From there the way to the Andes in Ecuador was short; he studied with genuine shamans and local spirits. He then did advanced courses in the Amazon rain forests and returned to New York to start working his magic.

With partners, he established the New York Shamanic Circle, a group of 1,000 members who meet once a month. He gives the healing workshops, which involve connecting to your inner tree at various places. During a workshop that recently took place at the ABC furniture store in Manhattan, he relates, one girl discovered that she was a palm tree swaying in the tsunami, and surviving. "The tree taught her the strength of flexibility."

It's a little before two and he is getting ready for a workshop with a group of elderly single women in a community center on the West Side in Manhattan. The women show up in the blood-curding cold and flutter around him, and we all sit down on chairs in a circle, ready for the journey. "We are about to make miracles," he declares. He preaches about the importance of hugging trees and relates that he will be flying to Israel tomorrow in order to give workshops and celebrate Tu Bishvat (Arbor Day) "in de desert, in de Dead Sea. Ol de spiritooel movement kum from der. Vee are going to celebrate de birthday off de tree."

We are about to experience being trees. "Would you like dat?" he asks, and tells us to close our eyes and bring a beloved tree back into our lives, as he launches into riveting meditative drumming. "Did you meet your tree?" he asks after we open our eyes.

Each of us relates her experience. Tatyana met her gray-white tree of childhood, through which she heard a Romanian lullaby that her late mother would sing her. She breaks into tears. Betty adopted the dark, bare tree she saw through the window and imagined it blossoming. It's her first time becoming a tree.

Beery explains that every tree has a message for us and that now we are going on a journey into the spirit of our tree. The drumming starts again, the travelers breathe heavily. Betty noticed that the tree in the dark yard is multi-branched. "That's what I want to do, to expand my horizons. I am stuck in my life," she says.

Beery asks us to stand. "Imagine you are your tree," he says, and authorizes swaying in an imaginary wind and making sounds. Drumming, he passes through the ancient forest that is striking roots in the fluorescent hall. Some of the trees lean on chairs. Betty says afterward that she swayed but nevertheless felt stable. "Maybe I am developing," she reflects. Tatyana's fingers turned into lovely leaves, filled with energy. "It was intense," she says.