Summer midges nipping badly. Bracken scratching bare skin, tangling shins, snagging ankles, blood oozing. Ticks clinging tightly to fronds, hidden, waiting to drop silently onto their unsuspecting host - me! I enter the woods encased in a protective layer, to keep myself “safe”, Shoes on feet, semi sensible clothes on body, and a mind full of irrelevant thoughts, clanging, jangling, irrelevant to this moment. Not enough clothing to keep the midges at bay, or stop the ticks finding a way in. Great! Shh, quiet, look up, notice.
Overhead, dwarfing everything, the immense trunk of the Oak towers into the early afternoon sunlight. I cannot see the top. If I had a tape measure, I could accurately tell you how massive she is, I could measure her girth, lay a tape along those massive branches, provide cm accurate lengths for each limb. I have no tape measure, I have a camera, and an iPhone, and a sense of wonder. So instead of measuring, I approach this magnificent tree, and say ‘hello’. Inadequate as that clearly is, I have yet to enrol on the “Communicating with trees 101” course. I have lived on earth for a considerable number years, am considered old, indeed in my final years, the “twilight” of my life, and yet I still have to learn the basics of how to communicate with a tree. I’ve climbed them, I’ve sheltered under them, I’ve unthinkingly cut them down ending their chance of a long life of wisdom and sharing. I have treated them as an ornament to make my memory of a landscape more attractive, or help me frame a photograph. I’ve decorated others of them with fancy baubles at Christmas. Until now though, I have never actually considered how to communicate with them. And yet here I am, in my dotage, reflecting on what this tree has seen, how many people have passed by, events have happened, storms been weathered, and how do I greet this tree?
So how to describe the life cycle of an Oak? (the Woodland trust is a great resource for finding out really interesting facts about trees https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2019/06/tree-lifecycle/).
I read that from the acorn germinating, to amazingly surviving saplinghood, and dodging the browsing deer and sheep, to maturity is around 40 human years (ok so my son was 10 when I was 40). This is when they start to produce acorns, they can be considered an adult at about 80 to 120 human years, (less that 20 years to go to that milestone, and not a hope of reaching 120). With adulthood lasting maybe 300 years, (ok I’m well out of here, forgotten and irrelevant). An ancient tree is defined by more than just their age, more by their maturity, by gnarliness, hollowing out at the centre, by the way it provides more shelter in nooks and crannies for other creatures, birds, insects, plants, lichen and fungi. (Now that resonates, the craggy, saggy, gnarliness not maturity!) Then, after so many years of service to the world, our tree approaches its death, maybe another hundred years, and in that time, they give themselves even more to the service of others, by providing increasing numbers of nooks and crannies for habitats, by breaking down and decaying and providing minerals and nutrients for other plants and fungi, and so the Oaks final years are those of being reabsorbed by the earth to feed a new generation, to enrich the soil and return its wealth to the earth to benefit the rest of the woodland. Wow, that’s quite a thought, and I wonder at the wonders of Earth, such a vibrant living planet, sure to survive long past the relevance of human beings.
As I walked clumsily in the woods today, I breathed in the wholesome perfume of an active forest. The scent of the humus, rich in leaf mould, dark and fibrous, full of life, springtails, wood lice, centipedes and millipedes, of fungi and bacteria, and millions of others. Organisms that I could not even begin to describe. A healthy mix of life, living and dying, thriving and failing, herbivore and carnivore, but in harmony, no-one dominating too much, no-one taking too much, a life of give and take, just enough. Plants, and animals in natures wild places have no sense of gluttony, ownership, or possession. For them it is enough to live side by side amongst all the other organisms, to eat and be eaten and when it is your turn to be eaten, your life enriches the woodlands, your body provides minerals needed by others, no one dominates for long. Oh there are squabbles to be sure, and fights over mating, and dens, or home territory. Those are basic needs of all living things in one way or another. But not greedy, no never greedy, not ownership instead temporary possession, a fleeting stewardship of place.
And so I reflect on the human world, a world in which I actively participate, need, value, care about, I wonder what I can do to take a little less from nature, to give a little more to our extraordinary world. Even my native tongue hampers me, my language gives pronouns to humans or animals with a clearly defined sexuality, how do I honour a tree with an appropriate pronoun, they are so not an it! This tree that communicates so much better than I, that shares so much more with the world than I could ever hope to, that is the primary source of life on earth, that photosynthesises and creates her own food, and gives so much to so many others, now this should easily be identified by words. How is English so humanity dominated, so neglectful of nature and the natural world. So today I have called this life giver she/ her, matriarch, benevolent queen, a mark of respect, until I know better. I have no answers, but I will keep asking the questions. How can I be more like my Oak tree? If you know, or know where to find an answer I’d love to hear. We all really need to do just a little bit better for nature don’t you think? And in the meantime, look out the teachings of Robin Wall Kimmerer, invite her in to enrich your life.
Dear Sarah, how wonderful you describe your/our relationship with trees, and especially the oak tree. I have always been a tree lover and I know trees are one of the most important living creatures we need and we must protect! The oak tree is a tree with a huge biodiversity on it, and so it is a tree which I love very much. Thanks for this reminder!
Thrilled to have discovered a kindred spirit here, Sarah. We visited your neck of the woods in our van, loved it!