The other day I was walking along a forest path, soaking up all that nature had to offer. I strayed from the path to see if I could get a better view of the sun, as it was on its way to setting. I walked and walked, among the ferns and flowers, and along the forest walls of green leaves. I decided to sit down and relax up against a mighty oak tree, standing slightly apart from the larger gathering of trees, and giving me a clear view of the soon setting sun. As I sat there pondering my walk, finding myself as the usual spectator of life’s questions racing around in my mind, I became aware of a song being sung behind me.
The tone was quite soft and hard to distinguish at first, but as I listened in closer, the lyrics began to form. “Lean on me when you’re not strong, and I’ll be your friend”. I slid to my right and looked past the worn bark of the tree…nothing. As I settled back into the grassy cushion of my original seat, I tried to recollect if I had seen anyone as I traveled along the path. With the absence of another in my memory, and the words being so clear that neither my imagination nor the wind could have developed that tune. I slid around to my left to the opposing side of the tree… again nothing. With no soul in sight, I decided to regain my seat and wait. For it was still clear that the song was not a conjuring of my mind. Then in a moment, the lyrics now unpaused, continued on. “I’ll help you carry on for it won’t be long til I’m gonna need somebody to lean on”.
At its conclusion, I sprang forward from my seat and spun around in search of the artist, accounting for all 32 compass points. I stood there for longer than I care to admit. Staring in the general direction of what I believed to have been the song’s origination. Then in a sudden break of the distinct silence, the mysterious voice spoke once again. “If you are trying to beat me in a staring contest, I hope you understand that I have no eyes.” Then I realized the voice was coming from in front of me. Emanating from about the height of an average man, directly from the oak tree itself. The voice continued on, “And yes, I am a talking tree and you’re not going crazy.” My once racing thoughts about life now shifted lanes to my own sanity. “Well, I am unsure of that, for I really don’t know you at all.” Said the voice smugly and continued, “In regards to the song, I am sorry if I startled you, but I figured it was appropriate considering your position, leaning on me and all”.
Once I directed my racing brain cells to the situation at hand, I figured that where was no harm in conversing with a tree. If I was going crazy, then not having the conversation would be of little help at this point. With this concluded, I broke my silence and eagerly replied, “Yeah, you startled me a little. I am not quite skilled in distinguishing talking foliage from among the rest.” I said with a semi-nervous chuckle. “Why did you start singing?” I asked in continuation. “Not the song exactly, because I get the irony and I appreciate the timely pun.”
The whole tree seemed to adjust slightly before response, like an old man in a rocking chair, sitting upon a set of seasons worn grooves. “Well, it seemed that you were thinking about some matters that might be rooted a little deeper than the grass upon which you were sitting. As a tree, I do a lot of people watching, as the job of being a tree allows for quite a large amount of that sort of activity. I tend to have nowhere to go and not many options to get there. If I did, mass panic may be among the common reactions of those who frequent these paths.” With the semblance of a barkish smirk, slowly shifting to a grin of intrigue, the oak continued on. “That look you have, I see a lot of people who walk along these paths with the very same. A sort of searching beneath the glances amongst the forest. I guess I was wondering what you are searching for, if anything in particular?”
With this question posed to me, I found myself in a perplexed state of mind. Brought on by the simple fact of having a conversation with a tree, but also heightened by the depth of the question itself. Once my frantic thoughts slowed back down to a gentle racing speed, I was able to respond to the unique tree standing before me. “Well I guess you could say I am searching for something in a way. Mostly answers to life’s questions. Trying to figure out life, you know? Well, maybe you don’t, I really have no idea about the life of a tree and if you actually have any questions about really anything at all.”
“Well I am not completely clueless, like those rocks scattered over there.” Replied the mighty oak with a tone that almost gave it a look of comic disgust. Then it continued, “I’ve certainly had some of those questions in my day, the ones that you don’t even know if they really are a question or just what you ate.”
“What you ate? Trees don’t eat.” I said in quick wonderment.
“I was trying to put it in your terms, and I was assuming that you had some grade school knowledge of how a tree works. Do you know that when a dog comes up and lifts its leg by a tree, that us trees are not completely immune to those effects? The potency can make you question a lot more than just life.”
“I guess that makes sense”. I said in reply and continued. “And yes, in my defense, I have at least an elementary understanding of how a tree works.” At this point I made another decision to continue talking with this tree, despite all the red flags of bizarreness. “So it seems that you have been around the block a couple times, or have at least watched others go around it. Have you ever found answers to any of those questions?”
“Well…” said the tree with a pause, like a calm before the impending storm. “Life’s answers come in many forms. Living lessons are great teachers, but the funny thing about life is that you can learn the easy way or the hard way. In learning the hard way, a lesson learned or answer gained, sadly comes when you have lost the most need for it. It is like waiting to see what happens when the man, with the beard wearing a flannel, walks up to you carrying an axe. You can simply see what happens when he does it to the tree a couple trunks down. Learning from others can save you a great deal in the area of life’s troubles. There are a lot of lives out there to learn from. Each life, a lesson itself, taught from its own pages. I may not have answers to the questions that brought you here, but there is much that I have learned through the seasons of my life.”
I stood pondering what I was hearing, while nodding in a slow rhythm, tuning itself to the orchestra of the forest of which I was a guest. I was struck, this tree viewed life despite the lack of any vision. From what depths within did his wonder come from? With this thought settling at the base of my mind, I waited, as a silent instrument of the forest, for the tree to continue.
“The genesis of my story may have an appearance quite different from yours. In the end, the value of a lesson is still the same. Feel free to sit and relax.” Said the tree with a tone of urged invitation. “Unless you don’t mind the occasional hiker wondering where the nuthouse is located, from which you escaped. It may be best if you sit. Nodding and staring at me may not be best for either one of us. The lack of face is not much for conversation as it is.”
“Very wise” I responded as I made my way back down to my previously comfortable position at the base of the tree. A few subtle checks insured me that a group of nature seekers had not gathered in the last 5 minutes to watch the entertainment of a one-man conversation with a tree.
With rooted calmness the tree began. “My story started with nothing more than gravity and the warehouse habits of woodland creatures. The choice in where I grew was not my own, I simply grew here because I was here. This was something I fought with as a sapling, but I slowly learned the greatness that can come from fulling embracing it. The truly amazing things that happened in living my life fully where I found myself, despite what I saw happening around me in the areas out of reach. I learned I could reach my full potential by never stopping the pursuit of what was already in front of me. In cultivating the little things, I pushed myself to grow beyond what I thought was possible where I was planted. And it was in appreciation of the small moments of life when happiness bloomed. In being shelter for just a single robin, when I was too small to support a family. Or realizing that even if I dropped only a single acorn, that I was able to help a squirrel in need. I knew my time would come, but it would come one branch and acorn at a time.” The tree paused for a moment and softly bellowed, as if a part of himself, deep within his seasons of rings, was filling with content.
Then without losing any strength in his words the voice lumbered on. “I’ve had my dry times, my seasons of loneliness when others have reached the forest floor. Dormant times when life seems to cease within me. The sense that I have lost what once gave me the color of life. But despite these times, when the winter had completed it’s journey along my path, the sun shone all the brighter and life inside me was mended once again. For with the dark and gloomy seasons still felt at the buds of my branches, the spring sprung in me more than it ever had. The dark seasons shown upon my life, that it was in these ever-cloudy moments that I abounded. With the absence of life beaming within me, my roots broke down and found deeper and deeper soil. This alone, brought me to the heights at which I now see the sun brighter and ever brightening.
I could feel the echoing of these words through the whole tree as each word connected itself to the trunk of my spine.
“But there may be no greater moments in my existence, then those in which I was shelter or provision for another in their time of need. Each family of birds that once trusted their home to the unknown strength of my limbs. A worn-out deer laying amongst my shadow in reprieve from the unrelenting summer sun. Or my discarded branches, now the fuel for the warming fire of a once shivering hiker. I see every day the thankful squirrels gathering my once fallen acorns. Acorns of which I once thought, a lost and wasted piece of my life. Pieces of me which seemed without purpose or value, filling the desperate need of another. And from this, I found a need filled within me.”
“In the end, when my last sun rises above the horizon and my final sunset passes below the hill, where each one before it has gone. I will simply know that every leaf that budded and fell was meant to be upon my branches. And that beyond all my doubts in life, I was meant to fall where I fell just the same.”
As I sat there and thought about each word spoken in this soothing and lumbering tone. I saw so clearly what he meant by saying our lives were not all that different. Now meeting at the crossroad of life’s examination, though it struck me that this tree knew a little more than I. Maybe because it couldn’t go anywhere. That contentment was known in every branch of it’s being. Or that deep down it was stilled by something greater than itself.
With darkness approaching, brought on by the sun almost complete in its act of setting upon the staged hill before me. I unrooted myself from the grassy blanket, covering the deep roots of the mighty oak beneath me. My body creaked as I turned to face my wooded friend, ready to inquire on if he ever had seasons of regret. When I finally stood and faced the towering tree. It stood before me just as I found it, but the presence that spoke was not. It had said all that it meant to say and this I knew. With a sigh of brief sadness, quickly restored with a fresh breath of renewal, I turned and faced the path upon which I came. I walked towards the hill, the stage curtain now closed, behind it the setting sun now resting. Within me a depth questions, which I still pondered. Some with no companion of words, now answered by the meeting of an unexpected forest friend.
As I departed the now darkened forest, I knew deep within me a seed of great worth was sown in the moments of that day. The day I had my first and last conversation with a tree.
Image Credit: Emanuele Maria Bonafiglia