“We need hours of endless wandering or …time sitting on park benches observing the mysterious world of ants and the canopy of treetops.” — Maya Angelou
The April trees were dancing with new leaves in the Spring winds.
They spoke of eternity, permanence, and of change.
Trees and plants constitute “99% of terrestrial biomass on a global scale.” Trees have been growing through millennia. Roots grab deep into the soil. Leaves dance in the morning sunlight. Flowers bloom endlessly. Seeds travel far and wide with the assistance of birds and wind and weather. And this is done in a quiescent springtime.
The tall maple trees on Fairoaks Avenue in Peoria were a delight of my childhood. I climbed the trees. I raked the leaves and made pretend birthday cakes to jump and frolic in. My first bicycle ride went a route between those two trees. Years later I saw that one tree was gone, but one remained.
Trees flourish at the center of our universe telling us of old stories and of battles and of redemption. The trees now will outlive us and were growing before we grew. The forest trees give comfort, surprise, and healing. We should listen.
History is written in a tree’s rings. A full-year’s growth adds one ring yearly. An ancient wooden walkway built through peat bogs in Somerset, England shows rings that date the track back to 3806 B.C. to make it 1,000 years older than Stonehenge.
There is a massive sequoia named General Sherman in California’s Sequoia National Park which is 275 feet tall. Its trunk at the ground is 36 feet across. What stories this giant could tell. There is a Norway spruce in Sweden’s Fulufjallet National Park that shows carbon-dating its root system gives an estimate that the tree is 10,000 years old.
There are three tree species that predate dinosaurs by more than 100 million years. Eospermatopteris, Archaeopteris, and Tetraxylopteris had tallest species with fronds, but no true leaves. Leaves were a later evolutionary development that gave even more surface area to trap sunlight for the sake of photosynthesis.
Henry David Thoreau wrote in a journey entry, January 6, 1857 “Wood, earth, mould…exist for joy.” Earth began as a “roiling ball of elements careening through space and incorporating planetary debris as the solar system evolved.” Ultimately, patterns became sea and land, oceans and continents. Land began as rock.
Trees have fed us and given us wood for our homes. In 2019 more than 600 million cubic meters of timber were traded on the international market. That number does not include that used in paper and other pulp products.
Earth Mother has given us sunlight and rain, trees and leaves, a single maple in a backyard or a giant forest. John Muir wrote that, “Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.”
Let us open that door and explore the verdant garden, the children’s park and the primeval forest around us. Let us rejoice in this renewed Springtime of wonder and excitement and possibilities.