Connected While Apart
Tree Talk

Dear Mayfield,
Winter 2019 was rough and long. Added to the usual winter winds, snow, and low temperatures, was a large quantity of ice. The ice meant it was a winter littered with pieces of trees on the ground.  Theresa referred then to these downed portions of trees as tree casualties. Yesterday morning our summer world was a world of tree casualties — snapped, broken, uprooted, tangled, swaying overhead, hurled across space, shattered and shattering, out-of-place. Monday afternoon, a derecho, an intense, widespread, and fast-moving windstorm, the over-the-land parallel to hurricane winds on the water, sped across 770 miles in 14 hours from South Dakota to Ohio.  With 80-100 mile per hour winds in northern Illinois, it released six tornadoes including one in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, damaged crops, tore down power lines, and brought an additional layer of chaos to so many lives. People are living without power, dealing with piles of tree casualties in their yards, and assessing vehicles, buildings, and fields for levels of destruction. We are carrying around in the heart of our prayers people we know and neighbors whose names are unfamiliar to us whose lives were severely impacted by Monday’s weather. At the same time that many of us heard the word “derecho” for the first time, we learned that the area this wind crossed on Monday is indeed the center of derecho wind action on the North American continent. This is not necessarily a once in a lifetime storm for us.  An appropriate response might be that we don’t need anything else right now to stir up our fears and anxieties.

As a counterbalance to an uptick in our stress, let’s listen to these words regarding some of the essential wisdom of trees as described by Sogyal Rinpoche:  “When you think of a tree, you tend to think of a distinctly defined object; and on a certain level…it is.  But when you look more closely…you will see that ultimately it has no independent existence. When you contemplate it, you will find that it dissolves into an extremely subtle net of relationships that stretches across the universe.  The rain that falls on its leaves, the wind that sways it, the soil that nourishes and sustains it, all the seasons and the weather, moonlight and starlight and sunlight–all form part of this tree. As you begin to think about the tree more and more, you will discover that everything in the universe helps to make the tree what it is; that is cannot at any moment be isolated from anything else; and that at every moment its nature is subtly changing.” (quoted in The Power of Trees by Gretchen Daily & Charles J. Katz Jr.)

The tree is at the center of an “extremely subtle net of relationships that stretches across the universe.” So are we. Being mindful of the network, the relatedness, the web of life, that is before and behind, above and below, within and around us, can keep us in a balance of sanity, hope, courage, and compassion during these difficult days.  There is a bold assertion in Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax:  “I speak for the trees.”  In a time of severe climate change, that speaking is critical. But equally important is how and when and why we listen to the way forward for all of us that the trees unceasingly point toward.  Whatever is distinct about any of us or about the human community is also intricately woven into a whole of life that trees so reliably illustrate. Consider a connection with at least one tree that can soften this hard time in companionship with you.
Peace, Martha