May 19, 2026
Written by Melanie Hartt and Naren Michael
Forest Trees or Trees Forest ?
Melanie
When I was a child, I adored the Canadian television show Mr. Dress-Up. The star of the show—you guessed it: Mr. Dress-Up—would put on a costume and educate the audience about the people he was pretending to be.
Often times, all he needed was the right hat.
By donning iconic head gear, he’d instantly take on the role of whom he was pretending to be:
a magician
a train conductor
a clown
a construction worker
a firefighter
a cowboy
Are you familiar with the phrase “wearing too many hats”? It’s what you say when someone has taken on so many different roles that their essence or life purpose is no longer identifiable. The hat (or hats) one wears tends to be what defines you in this world. For instance, different people see me as a wife, a mother, a daughter, a farm girl, a writer, an editor, an animal communication enthusiast, an equestrian, an actor, a caretaker, or a quilter… to name a few! I’m also someone who is silly, smart, sassy, successful, and sincere.
But at the heart of it all, I am me.
What “hat” symbolizes all that is me? That’s a question I have been trying to answer for over fifty years now.
It isn’t just one hat. And its more than all that I wear.
Thankfully, I don’t have to do so on my own. This new blog series which my friend Naren and I are sharing with you is about self-discovery.
Who you are and all that you are.
A forest isn’t a forest if there’s just one tree. And when you’re in the middle of a forest, surrounded by trees, it’s impossible to know just how far the forest reaches… Or the types of trees which will add to its growth in the many years to follow.
When you’re focused upon the details of your life, you need someone with a different perspective - someone who can help you navigate through the forest because they can see the whole thing better - a.k.a. the bigger picture. Animal communication has taught me that I’ve never been alone, as I was surrounded by animals from the moment I was born. And each of those animals has had something to teach me or show me about myself.
Sometimes the messages are clear. Like when my horse Chandler reminded me I was acting like a tightly wound ball of twine and told me to unwind. Other times the messages are more open ended: like when Star showed her and I working in a film noir styled detective’s office. Our soul contract revolves around going on a mission of self-discovery together.
What do you think of when you see a 1940’s fedora? I think of detectives from old film noir movies and gumshoe detectives hired to find out important information.
Instead of going to our animals and asking them what numbers we should pick in the lottery, we ask them to help us on our journey to find confidence, hope, success, awakening, and love. How we embody those things informs the roles we take on. Are we confident mothers or timid ones?
How do we find the right path to follow?
Ask, and don’t be surprised your animal puts on an explorer’s pith helmet and then takes you on an adventure - discovering what makes you tick.
Naren
This is going to be an interesting one for me. Melanie and I have been sharing Animal Communication readings for just a little over a year now. We recorded all of our sessions, and have transcripts from them. Pulling together the growth that we both went through from last April to now has shown a powerful path that we didn't see as we were living this journey.
What we're looking at is a number of recurring patterns, threads, that have shown up across multiple sessions. When we looked at these threads, we found a sequence the animals were giving us. A direction, a foundation, a way we were and are learning. They also gave us a visual teaching language. A set of images, each building on the one before, all of them leading to where we are today.
The title 'Forest Trees or Trees Forest' plays on the old proverb documented by John Heywood in 1546: you cannot see the forest for the trees. So many details in front of us, all those trees, that we miss the big picture, the forest they make up. That’s the situation we are in. We decided the corollary is also true: we can’t see the trees for the forest. When we look at the big picture, we don’t yet understand it.
So this is going to be the first in a series of blogs where we explore the changes, the growth we've both experienced in our journey of working with animals and animal communication. We will push these out as we learn with you what all of this means. What we've learned, what we're still learning. And maybe: where are we going from here.
Ruminations
“There’s the higher level, the forest; we have a picture of that. We don’t understand it, it doesn’t make sense to us. The lower level is all the details, the trees. We’re trying to work through all the information. How do the details all fit together to create this high level picture. I don't know if the high level is too high or not high enough.
It's both ways, somehow. Usually you say you can't see the forest for the trees. We can't see the trees for the forest, too." Naren Michael
"Focused on the little things, we forget the bigger picture." Melanie Hartt