This morning I wanted to talk about trees. This has been stirred by a photo my good friend David Pott posted on Facebook. It was of the tree that inspired Tolkien to create the Ents and Treebeard character in the Lord of the rings. The tree is 400 years old and was planted in the time of Henry VII. It is not surprising that its shape triggered Tolkien,s imagination. And it is only one of many that have done the same for me.
In the comments someone added a link to the UK ancient tree inventory. Some of the yew trees are close to 5000 years old, some oaks 1000 many of them preserved because they were within the royal hunting grounds.,
Trees are amazing creations and I think - no wonder God chose a tree to represent life. Trees in so many ways are the sustainers of life. without the forests of the Amazon sending oxygen into the air and pulling CO2 out of it our planet would be in more dire consequences than it is.And we don’t know the full extent of the consequences of the loss of so many other forests cut down because of our hunger for land, timber and money.
So what are the oldest trees in the world. The oldest individual tree in the world is thought to be iMethuselah, a Great Basin Bristlecine Pine in California. It is thought to be almost 5000 years old. Looking at this and similar ancient pines makes one feel as though we are travelling back in time. It gives me a sense of my own insignificance and how amazing it is that ins spite of our short lifespan God knows each of us by name and cares for us.
There is another form of tree that inspires me too. What are known as clonal colonies. The largest of these is Pando in Utah thought to be between 14,000 and 80,000 years old. Talk about making me feel insignificant. I talked about this and some of the 400-500 year old oaks I saw in Britain in a post a couple of years ago in which I talked about the concept of mother trees and reflected on the fact that the tree of life in Revelation - growing on both sides of the river sounded more like a mother tree in a forest than an apple tree - interconnected to the other trees in the forest by the mycelial filaments that flow through the whole of the forest, protecting and nourishing the other trees and some think even communicating wisdom to them.
Here in the Pacific NW we have huge trees too once they covered the land to such an extent that many felt oppressed by their density. As I look out my window I see a couple of them- a huge douglas fir now standing alone but looking stunning as it reaches to the sky in front of me, but if I walk round to view it from the other side I see where it has been decimated, all its branches cut away so that it does not interfere with the lines that bring electricity and internet to our houses.
Close to it is the giant maple I call my sentinel tree because it always signals the changing of the seasons - the first to show a red streak in the autumn, one of the first to lose its leaves and then to regain them again in the spring. It speaks graphically to me me of the rhythm of life and reminding me that rhythmic change is necessary for all of us to sustain healthy life.
Trees inspire my creativity and imagination too. just as they did for Tolkien. There is a tree at Circlewood on Camano island that has what looks like Celtic braiding at its base, it reminds me of the many retreats we held on the island and fills me with the desire to hold another one. Or to build an altar from a things I gather from the land as a focus for worship to God. there is another that reaches for the sky with three distinct trunks. This is my trinity tree and I love to visit it each time I go to the island.
After a storm I love to collect what trees have let go of in order to survive - branches and leaves and pine ones. Sometimes bark. I love to arrange them in mandalas or incorporate the in my gardens.
I could go on and on about what trees teach me - like the eucalyptus in Australia that help me understand how to survive both drought and flood and the giant evergreens that survive the cold by retracting their sap into the centre making a natural antifreeze that protects their core in the coldest weather.
I could talk too about forest bathing and the health benefits of waking among the trees. So much to learn from the trees. Maybe it is time to go out and hug one.
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