Tree Teachers

Have you ever noticed that trees find life in community? I was driving through Central Texas this week and noticed the Live Oaks alongside the road were in groups of 2 or 3 or more…leaning this way and that – a lifetime of making space for each other. Don’t get me wrong, I also saw plenty of trees by themselves…but more often than not those solo trees had the tale tale sign of being planted by a human, as if we humans think trees don’t play well together or value being close.

Humanity tends to think a lot of itself. Yep, we went to the moon and created the twinky. Yet, humanity has only been around for about 200,000 years. We are babies of creation! Trees…they have been living, learning, and passing on their wisdom for nearly 400 MILLION years. (that’s 400,000,000). You and I are the newest kids on the Earth block. I think trees can teach us a lot about how to be human.

Did you know that trees learn to share the space around them? Looking down on a grove of trees, you will notice how they practice what is called “crown shyness”…where they avoid touching tree branches…creating gaps in the canopy that can look like an intricate network of channels. Tree not only share the sun, but bend over backwards to make space for others…working together to be the lungs of the earth. Also, we are just beginning to grasp the “wood wide web,” the neural network level connection of mycelium fungi in the ground connecting trees/plants of similar and different backgrounds. What a joy to think that fungi can remind us that we are all interconnected and interdependent! Did you know the network of connections under even a small forest outnumbers the number of neural connections in the human brain?

There is a lot of population growth where I live, and I watch how the hillsides are scraped of nearly all vegetation to put in roads and houses and retail…and how all this crushes and damages the 100’s and 1000’s of years of underground plant wiring and fungi. I wonder what wisdom we no longer can learn from in this place.

The leaves of trees are also the nursery to 1000’s of butterflies and moths. The entomologist, Douglas Tallamy notes, “without insects, humanity would only last a few months on this planet.” Yikes! We are all connected at the hip/thorax more than we realize. Did you know that oaks are the host plant to 468 butterfly and moth caterpillars? To raise one bird nest of fledgling in your backyard takes on average 4000 caterpillars over a couple weeks! Mom and dad birds are BUSY! So, the next time you want to rake, blow, or remove the leaves in your yard…fight the urge! Just leave the leaves, or pile them up as ground cover at the base of the tree or in your flower beds. The birds in your area depend on the caterpillars that will emerge from eggs laid on tree leaves. Learn more about what insects love the leaves of the trees in your neighborhood (www.nwf.org/NativePlantFinder).

I invite you to find a tree…an older sibling growing near you. Thank the tree for all the gifts and wisdom it is passing on to you and others to make life possible. Learn this kin’s name and story and how it can calm you and put what feels like our up and down human and national story in perspective. Spend time listening and learning about this sibling of yours….maybe just spend time in the tree’s shade and presence…and in doing so you will find yourself growing in relationship with the Creator, and learning more how to love all your neighbors…both human and beyond.

In the Lord of the Rings, one of the characters, a hobbit named Pippin, describes Treebeard…an Ent…a tree…who he befriended. Pippin says, “something that grew in the ground…had suddenly waked up, and was considering you with the same slow care that it had given to its own inside affairs for endless years.”

Know that the tree siblings near you ARE awake, full of wisdom to share and center, and consider YOU with the same slow care and love that has been passed down over millions of years.

Peace,
Harold