Giants in our Midst

It was a warm day here in Iowa yesterday, in the mid-thirties. The sky was a light gray, no sun visible. I needed to go to the bank, so I drove across town, through city streets. And as I drove along, I was riveted by the trees. In a city, as opposed to a forest, there are thousands of trees that have had plenty of space to spread out in their own way. Every tree is different. Every tree has a personality of its own. And yesterday there was something radiating from the trees that took my breath away. There was an energy glowing around each tree. Really! I know this sounds like I was on an hallucinatory drug. But no, I was totally in my right mind. Actually, I've witnessed this before, mostly in the very early spring when it makes sense that something is moving in the trees, something anticipating spring. Today, in the middle of winter, it was there too. Part of me wanted to somehow warn the trees: don't believe this weather! It won't last! But then I realized that the trees can take care of themselves. This is not the first time they've experienced unnatural weather in the winter. 

I drove down many roads in the city, and all the trees were reaching out and up with something. I don't know how to describe this. It's not exactly a visual thing. It's more an exuberant sense of life and growth and movement happening right in front of us. It felt intoxicating, being among such huge living forms. I was grinning the whole drive, almost not believing how wondrous is this thing of trees in our midst. 

In the winter, you can see the inner form of deciduous trees. And they are beautiful. Almost without exception, the form of a tree is graceful, expansive, balanced in one way or another. Even if they are harmed or partially cut, they have a way of mending themselves gracefully. As I drove down the streets, I had such a feeling that these trees were just as full of life as we are. And compared to humans, prettier! People are kind of gangly, legs and arms waving about, ungracefully moving around. Trees, on the other hand, have a still peaceful presence. They grow and change, but not as fast as we do. Some of the trees I was seeing yesterday were remarkable: some whose tops reached up like feathers, some with branches dark and twisted, some with healed round places on their trunks, some still covered with green needles. These trees had claimed their own lives, perhaps planted years ago but since then have adjusted to their environments with curves or wide spreads or slim long forms. Some look like the arms of a mother, reaching out to connect. Some are covered with little nuts or seed pods. Some would make good climbing trees with sturdy thick branches. And some are almost ethereal with perfectly attuned limbs reaching up and out, and fine wispy ends. 

If we lived in the desert, trees would probably seem like a huge phenomenon. But here in the temperate zone, I suspect we get used to trees standing tall in our yards or along the sidewalks, around homes and office buildings, growing wherever they've been able to plant themselves. In fact, sometimes they seem to be unwelcome, getting in the way of one project or another, and we cut them down. Dispensable. Being a country girl, I've always liked trees, especially my favorite willow tree in the front yard of the family farmhouse. But even then, I didn't think about it being alive. And I didn't sense it growing, swelling with energy. As I grew older I could philosophically value trees as living neighbors. Or I could fantasize about mobile trees like Tolkien's forests, coming together to protect Middle Earth.

But yesterday, my experience of trees was amplified to the power of 10. I sensed these huge fellow beings as vital and alive, pulsing with life, reaching out and up. And it was contagious! I laughed with joy, being near them (even though I was just in a car driving up and down city streets). Who knows why the trees were so activated yesterday. Maybe it was a combination of the weather and the moon and whatever other elements affect us here on earth. It felt totally magical. And yet everyday we are living beneath trees, affected by their presence, stabilized by them. In their own way, they are aware, just like we are aware in our own way. We are learning more about trees and ecosystems all the time: how there is constant communication through the roots with other trees and with other life forms, how their respiration gives us oxygen to breathe, how they help with the climate by sequestering carbon. And a tree is the home for thousands of plants and animals, big and small and smaller. One tree has its own immediate neighborhood within its branches.

The life expectancy of trees usually is far greater than ours. Many kinds of trees live for hundreds of years. Just think of the times they have lived through, adjusted to. Their experiences are often expressed in their shape, their bark, the twists and turns of their trunks. They are old beings, stable through disruption as well as good times. I came home after yesterday's drive energized and amazed by the interaction I'd had with trees. I felt like finally my blinders had been taken off, and I really witnessed these huge presences around us. They are not just decorations, or good for shade. In one view of the world, they might be described as our guardians. Kings and queens of our neighborhoods. And whether we humans acknowledge that, the rest of the natural world does.