The other night as I was just dipping into a new novel I was struck by a couple of sentences and had to pause. I was all of two pages in.
"To him a tree is a thing, which can be replaced by another thing like it. Is it lunacy in me to feel that this is not so?"
from Peculiar Ground by Lucy Hughes-Hallett
As you know I was cutting down trees, and replacing at least one tree with a different tree. Perhaps this is why this sentence resonates with me so. But perhaps not.
The same weekend that the trees were coming down I was finishing up Peter Wohlleben's book The Hidden Life of Trees. It struck me that here I was reading about communication between trees, reading about the social structure of forests and the interrelationships between individual trees, and I was committing tree-murder. Of course Wohlleben himself states that nursery bred trees don't have the same social instincts that trees raised in their native forest, with their mother tree and all their relatives do. And I can believe that, just as I have come to understand that people who are reared in isolation, or without love and safety and emotional support do not have the same social instincts as people who have a more fortuitous upbringing.
I remember coming home from New York two years ago, sitting in the back of a car in the rain, headed toward Newark airport. The darkness was slowly lifting, its leaden, rain-soaked colors only slightly brightened, and I remember looking at the trees. I had no reason to think about trees. But those trees, surrounded by concrete, industry, traffic, and noxious fumes seemed particularly solitary, lonely even, isolated and yet determined to survive.
Perhaps I have too vigorous of an imagination, but I do not think this is the case. I was brought-up to believe that knowledge brings with it responsibility, responsibility for that which is known or seen. The two together, knowledge and its attendant responsibility help guide us, if we are attentive, to understanding.
I have always talked to trees and plants and animals as well. I think all children do, but we are often trained to outgrow it. If we are lucky, we live to outgrow our training. Even so, people who talk to trees are looked at with suspicion. We praise fantasy, the novels of CS Lewis, Tolkein, Stephen King, and many others, where, yes, trees are know to speak, or to have once spoken before growing silent, but it is more comfortable to relegate this idea to another place, the realm of fantasy.. I think we know that all living things are just that, alive. They feel, they suffer, they seek and need community, they love. Perhaps it is we humans, with our big brains, and the way we compartmentalize everything, who have forgotten the meaning of love and community. Even though we live in communities, it seems like we are often like those pot-grown trees, apparently together but actually apart. Our roots don't know how to intertwine, how to share, how to nurture and support each other.
And yes, I did murder trees; or I hired someone else to do it. Of course not all can survive, and I understand this. I can justify my actions as well. The river birch was directly in the line of future construction, the maple was on the edge, and even if it had survived, it would have experienced serious damage, and yes pain. A swift death by chain saw may be kinder than a slow an agonizing death. Mostly, thought that tree was simply too close to the house. There is a lesson in that, and I worry about putting the wrong plant in a place. Yes I am human, I am arrogant, I compartmentalize, I make mistakes, but I want to avoid the obvious ones, putting in a plant that solves a need now, knowing it will eventually grow too big. We human's say things like "but that's 50 years from now", as if the life of a tree doesn't matter, as if the tree is just a thing that can be replaced with another thing. But 50 years is but a drop in the bucket for many trees. Would we say the same thing about fellow humans? "Oh go ahead, let her grow and do what she wants, she entertains us now, in 20 years we can execute her and start over". I doubt it. And yes, I know that statement is a bit extreme.
Another tree came out. A redbud, that was loosing large parts of itself in every wind. A dogwood filled its place, and I cruelly pulled out other plants to replace some that were obviously struggling, but they were still alive. They were replaced with plants that I hope will do better in the spot. Gardening, it seems is also a responsibility, just as life is a responsibility. We boldly go, making mistakes daily. Tit for tat. "You hurt my people; I'll hurt yours". But that is not what it is all about. When we work in that dual, me and mine vs you and yours mode, we actually harm ourselves as much as the entire fabric of our society, our lives. We create rifts from which we may never recover. Compassion doesn't mean that no one ever suffers, it means that our roots, our very beings are interconnected, and we suffer together, that we mourn, that we support each other, but that we also live, and we also accept that our very lives depend on the health of the whole community.
And yet, we are arrogant. We make mistakes. I am arrogant. I make mistakes. Can we become master gardeners? Can we become masters of life? of compassion? Or will we cling stubbornly, each wrapping our roots around our particular rock, determined to have our way even as we stand isolated and alone against the elements?
