“If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees” — Hal Borland
I remember when I was probably 11 years old. I had to get off the bus at the highway and walk home down our sideroad about 3/4 of a mile in the dark. Half way home, there was a tree, an old tamarack beside the road. It spooked the hell out of me and I would sprint past it like my life depended on it - scared to death. Every time, always.
So, trees aren’t always the blessed, calm, giving things in our lives, as Mary Oliver suggests. People even get hung from them. But they mostly are. The point here is that they are alive, living things, not just purposeless, inanimate material.
This summer I wouldn’t have survived but for the local trees. I’d go out and sit there among them for an hour or two, dog at my feet - filling with fresh oxygen and reviving my overly air-conditioned apartment soul.
Trees. So much they give us. Fruits, nuts, housing for all kinds of creatures, oxygen, heat, fertilizer for our soil, shade, beauty, soil grip, protection, shelter … I’m missing a lot. They even are social and communicate. They are also brave, never even wimpering when we hack, chop and gnaw them to death.
I’m totally mind-blown how trees can survive and live in the most perilous, extreme conditions. Clinging to rock faces, in the middle of wind and sand blown deserts. You’ll find them everywhere. Sure, they grow shorter as you go north but they are ready for a fight.
Morning.
So much to do!|
Fences to mend.
Wood to chop.
Emails to send.Got to weed the garden.
There’s gas to buy for the generator and
the dogs need their run.Outside my window
the banana trees dance
in the ever wind
and wave their fronds at me
in laughter.
— 50 Poems From The Mountain
[and yes, I know a banana tree isn’t technically a tree but it stands tall enough and has enough “tree” in it for me to go with it.]
You might label me a kook but I think there is something to animism — that all things are alive and endowed with the breath of life, being alive. It’s a notion we’ve lost and to our detriment. Trees are right up there for me, in my imaginary animism hierarchy.
Why do we protect as “historical” 100 year old houses made of mostly of wood but chop down 1,000 year old trees like they are trash?
I used an axe an awful lot in my youth. Cut down a lot of trees. Split a lot of wood. And I’ll tell you a secret. Many times I would feel deep guilt, like I had blood on my hands.
Trees where we lived were part of the fabric of life. Canadians where I live have a song and it is basically just a repetition of “rocks and lakes and trees …”
This time of year, late fall, it was time to get your shit together and make sure you had enough wood to last the deep winter. Trees are everything.
Christmas wasn’t and isn’t a peaceful time for trees. As a kid, I was always in charge of going out and finding our family’s Xmas tree. One particularly harsh winter, with snow chest deep, I got the idea of looking up and I spotted the perfect Christmas tree at the top of one huge pine. I burrowed a path in the snow to its huge trunk and I chopped and chopped that thick tree, with all the vigor my youth could muster. It finally fell with the sound of 40 below thunder. I then proceeded to cut off the top part and haul my magnificent find home, to be put up as our holiday centerpiece.
It looked beautiful. We got it all decked out and dressed up with lights and bulbs and tons of tinsel. My younger sisters were glowing. It was going to be such a great tree for Christmas. NOT.
It dried out faster than an artichoke left out in the Atacama. No amount of water would help it. We threw it out after only 3 days, all the needles haven fallen off it.
I’ll end this little discursion into treehood with this parable about trees … you might have heard it before.
