The Rowan Tree: A Story About Integration

July 8, 2025

There’s a little potted tree sitting outside my window right now.
A Rowan—also known as Mountain Ash. It’s not native to where I live, in NSW, Australia. In fact, it was a bit of a mission getting hold of one! I had to order it from a special nursery down in Victoria and had to wait for weeks.

When it finally arrived, it came in a beautiful big box—and I was genuinely excited (well, at least I was. The kids couldn’t understand why I’d ordered a tree from so far away when, as they put it, “we already have trees here!” 😂)

I didn’t choose the Rowan randomly.
I chose it with intention.

In Nordic Mindfulness™, the Rowan tree represents the fourth principle: Integration. That’s why it called to me. I wanted it to represent that principle in my work—not just symbolically, but physically—as something I could interact with, tend to, and witness. Yes, it’s beautiful, but it’s also one of the rare trees that can grow in both the northern and southern hemispheres. That alone felt incredibly meaningful: a bridge between two worlds, two climates, two different ways of being. A tree that knows how to adapt.

It mirrored something I’ve been navigating in my own life. I’ve spent many years moving between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Raised in Sweden, currently living in Australia, and still feeling deeply connected to both. Choosing the Rowan became a way for me to honour that experience—between homes, between identities, between the life I left behind and the one I’m still building. Between who I was, who I am now, and who I’m still becoming.

“Integration isn’t about bouncing back.
It’s about letting something more authentic grow in its place.”

Integration isn’t about tidying things up. It’s not about wrapping your story in a neat bow or pretending the hard parts never happened. It’s not about being perfectly healed or relentlessly positive. It’s about learning how to hold all the different parts of your life, your self, your experiences—without needing to push any of them away. It’s about being able to sit with the contradictions and the complexity. It’s about welcoming your whole self to the table.

So when I planted the Rowan, I wasn’t just making a gardening decision. I was anchoring something. Rooting a principle into my everyday life. I got the right pot, the right soil. I placed it where the sun would reach it gently in the morning. And I checked on it daily. Watered it. Tended to it. It became a little sacred ritual—a way of looking after something that, in truth, was also looking after me.

But then… it got sick.

I noticed the leaves starting to curl. Then they began to dry out and die. Some kind of mites—or maybe another pest—had taken over. I tried everything: sprays, moving it to different light, adjusting the watering schedule. Nothing worked. I felt helpless, watching it slowly fall apart. Eventually, I had to do something drastic. I cut it back. Stripped it down to almost nothing. It looked like a skeleton of the tree it had once been. And I genuinely didn’t know if it would make it.

Still, I kept tending. Kept trusting. Kept showing up.

And little by little, something began to shift. A soft green emerged on one of the branches—tiny, delicate leaves, fresh with that springtime green—unfolding where I thought nothing would grow again.

And now? It’s thriving. Stronger than ever.

“That tree—that process—that recovery—wasn’t just about the Rowan.
It was about me.”

I often look out at that tree and feel a deep sense of recognition, especially when I find myself in that space between two realities. Because that tree—that process, that recovery—wasn’t just about the Rowan. It was also a symbol of me and my life.

The Experience of Burnout And The Body Saying No.

The truth is: I’ve been cut down too. More than once. I’ve gone through burnout. I’ve experienced betrayal. I’ve carried responsibility that was never mine to carry. There have been moments where I truly didn’t know if I would come back from it. I’ve lost huge parts of myself. Old dreams. Old coping mechanisms. Old versions of who I thought I was supposed to be.

You know, when we talk about the body saying no—it’s not always a whisper. Sometimes it’s a full shutdown. For me, that was my experience of burnout. My nervous system stopped cooperating. My heart screamed that it was time to stop running. I simply couldn’t push through anymore. And it scared me like hell. Because I realised what I was pushing through was costing me far too much. And when you see life flashing before your eyes, there is no “maybe I’ll try to look after myself better”—it’s either you do, or you suffer the consequences.

“Sometimes it’s not about going back, it’s about rebirth.”

But even in that deep, dark moment, I chose the light at the end of the tunnel. And just like the Rowan, little by little, something new began to grow. And no—it wasn’t about going back to how things were before. I had to turn inward. Become more honest with myself. More aligned. More deeply rooted in the person I actually am—not the one I had been performing as. That’s how integration began. Not as a return. Not as a way to repair. But as a rebirth.

So when people ask me what the principle of Integration in Nordic Mindfulness™ really means, I sometimes point them to a theory—but more often, I point them to that tree, and to the many stories it represents from my own life.

The Rowan isn’t just something I nurtured. It’s something that helped me reflect on my own process back to myself. It holds history in two hemispheres—just like I do. It survived decay, disease, and still chose to rise. It reminded me that integration isn’t about going back. It’s about letting all the parts—especially the broken ones, the sick ones, but also the strong ones and the “still-learning” ones—belong.

And now, this tree is even more than a metaphor… it’s part of the creative process too.

As I deepen into my project around music, nature, and biofeedback, the Rowan is co-creating music with me. Through special recordings that capture the tree’s bioelectric activity, I’m turning the Rowan’s energy into sound—and together, we’ve co-created a musical composition. Not as an abstract idea, but as a real piece of music, made with the tree.

When you hear that finished track—set to be released in 2026 as part of the full series of co-created music with the trees, under the name Jordic—you’re not just hearing notes. You’re hearing a story.

My story, yes. But maybe yours too.

The story of the part of you that had to be cut down… but didn’t give up.
The part that grew back—not as it was—but as something even more true.

Below is a sample of the raw biofeedback recorded from the Rowan tree—yet to be used in the co-creation of our shared musical composition.
How do you feel when you listen to its melody?