Gazing in the Mirror

March 26 - The Wisdom of Trees

I like trees because
they seem more resigned
to the way they have to live
than other things do.
~ Willa Cather

I am guided by the same
intelligence and inspired by
the same imagination which
scatters the moon beams
across the waves and holds
the forces of nature in it's grasp.
~ Ernest Holmes

Early one morning I received a call from a business associate who coincidentally is in the opposite part of our state (he is on the western border, while we are on the eastern side but both of us are at approximately the same latitude more or less). I asked if they had snowfall. We had only a non-enduring dusting here. He wished me "spring coming soon" and we shared perspectives about the lateness this year. I shared that I saw tender baby leaves beginning to show, ready for the first indication that it will really warm up enough for them to be confident about opening up quickly. It is true that Spring seems to be "late" this year. It is cold and snows still come. I was about to run out of my allowed dates to do my first frog and toad listening run because the weather had been inclement or too cold at night to meet the scientific requirements. The few days (only a handful) that I even heard the Spring Peepers that year had occurred when it was not convenient for me to go or because I wasn't prepared to go out without some time for pre-planning.  I no longer go out because the federal funding was withdrawn and after a couple of years during which Missouri valiantly tried to keep it going, they too gave up the effort.  But learning to identify the amphibians by their calls has remained a wonderful gift.

Han Yu (768-824) in his poem "Late Spring" shares "The grass and trees know spring is not far from returning/Red and purple blooms, fragrant and lush, vie with each other in a hundred ways/But poplar flower and elm seeds have no poetic feelings/they only feel the flying snow fill the sky." So it was that year here in Missouri that we had very few indications that Spring had arrived (though the equinox was passed) but we all know that Spring will come and after that will come the heat and humidity of Summer or drought as it may prove to be but that worry seemed less likely then due to ample moisture that year. One year we had the other extreme of a very early Spring and I even heard frogs and toads calling that I would not have expected to hear for several more weeks but the critters don't use a calendar to decide when conditions are right for them.

When the drought came that memorable Summer, it was severe. The soil was inches deep in powdery dust because there was no moisture to hold the soil together. The trees in their wisdom began shedding leaves to conserve their resources. They shed leaves early to reduce the surface area that would otherwise lose water. In some trees the leaves actually change color like they would otherwise do in Autumn and then their leaves fall even though it is still summer. The trees live slowly and long. They have experienced every extreme variation that Nature can express and yet the trees endure. They know what to do in order to survive.

Over the many years that I have observed the trees here with an increasing respect for whatever kind of intelligence is within them - it fills me with awe. One year they had well leafed out and then a killing frost came very late in April. It was so very sad to see the leaves turn black with frostbite. What was heartening to see after that however was that new leaves came to take the black leaves place so that by the end of the season even the hardest hit trees had recovered. Then I noted the following year that the trees seemed to be hesitant in leafing out. Somehow in their cellular memory was the reminder that they had been too quick to leaf out the year before.

I love to be hiking out in the forest as a storm is coming on. John Muir described it well when he said – "A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease". I am usually listening to something on my cd player and there have been times that my heart was light and happy and I was dancing with the trees in a similar joy because they seem so joyful in that wind-driven movement to me.

Because trees are stationary they are non-resistant. They can't up and leave when conditions are less than ideal. A neighboring heavy branch may fall on them and they can't move or get out of the way and therefore must bear the burden of that additional weight though they are never prone to complain as some humans would. Trees simply don't complain. Trees simply exist and in that simplicity of being there is yet an intelligence expressing through them that I am able to discern. I love trees. I have always loved trees since a very young age and I expect I always will.

~ perspective

I am grateful for the presence
of trees in my life because I
sense the aliveness that is in them
and I appreciate their solid
consistent presence and the way
they are non-resistant to the
seasons changing.
I love trees enough to appreciate
their value in human structures,
in buildings and in furniture, and
BEST in objects of art and beauty
where their essence is fully revealed
gloriously.
I have a tree that I hug and kiss
each day for being a witness to my
life as it was there when I married,
and there when I have cried tears
of sorrow and there to share my joys.
I have felt in my heart the pain and
sorrow of the trees in my forest
after a violent storm cut down many
living trees and so I have cried
with them.
I love to walk past the tall trees
that stand alongside the road, or
next to the stream in their majestic
presence, and have thought of the
countless generations the less
long-lived humans who have passed
away while the trees yet lived.

#continuity #drought #forest #hiking #intelligence #rain #seasons #signs #Spring #storms