Photo by Razvan Mirel on Unsplash

Photo by Eleonora Patricola on Unsplash

Photo by Thomas Haas on Unsplash

I bring this up because Twig and I have just returned, sweat covered and panting from the heat, after a hike around what’s become our preferred route, the three mile or so Cave Loop, which tends to be less trafficked than other roadways. How grateful I will be that the trails will be open for our next visit. We leave tomorrow and head south to Butte Lake in the far northeast corner of Lassen Volcanic N.P., a relatively undeveloped area at the end of a six-mile dirt washboard road.  Walking Cave Loop we stop periodically and sit and look at what’s around us. The first thing I notice is the silence; there are few human sounds, only an occasional car or airplane. The sounds I hear, gentle, soft, fitting, are from those who live out here: always it seems there’s a solitary bird (was he already there or did he fly in and land for the company?), singing for the pleasure of it is my guess or as greeting; flies buzz, insects click, that’s it. The speaking of these creatures actually does improve upon, or at least does not detract from, the silence. I can’t picture them forced by anything to speak; they don’t do it because of discomfort or convention; they have nothing to sell. They speak out of their nature and the authenticity of their being. I enjoy the silence out here and its little punctuations; it fosters connection and appreciation for the goodness of it all. It facilitates a unitive feeling to the extent I am receptive. I also enjoy the perspective given by elevation change; to the north it slopes downward toward hills on the horizon, and it seems I see many miles before they close the view, and to the south it rises and I see a shorter distance. Not to strain for imagery but there’s a sort of ethereal quality to the vast northern scene—it encompasses so much that’s so varied and suggestive of early volcanic times—while the southern scene is more straightforward and practical. Both, however, reveal how astonishingly prolific the grasses have been in recarpeting the landscape; with eyes only to the ground it’s verdant but raise them and skeletal snags remind of what happened. I can’t well identify why this particular land affects me as it does, but I’m inspired by it and return as often as possible.

Excerpt – Reverence for Existence by Craig Brestrup

Photo by Andrew Sterling on Unsplash

Once I embraced a giant pine in order to sniff its bark. Jeffrey Pines are said to smell a bit like vanilla but I couldn’t detect it. I did the same another time with an incense cedar, hugging and sniffing. Both times I noticed as I drew my face back an involuntary stroking of my hands on the tree, gently, as I would a loved person. It seemed simultaneously strange to find myself doing this and yet utterly appropriate. Strokes are for the doer as much as the recipient; I felt tender toward those trees and their silent, solemn aliveness.

I think it nearly impossible to pay close attention to trees, whether individually or as forests, and not be affected. So steadfast and graceful, they easily become companions. It seems a miracle they can stand so high, waver in the wind and remain upright. Were I the creator, I’d never have had the imagination to try something that seems so improbable. A freshly fallen, still living tree evokes sympathy and a frustrated wish to make it right again. While a long dead “nursery” tree supporting a linear stand of youngsters makes me smile and say thanks on their behalf.

As John Muir followed sheep up into the Sierra Nevada on his initial foray 141 years ago, he mentioned that “Another conifer was met today—incense cedar…” That “was met” tells that this was encounter with individual life and recognized as such. “I feel strangely attracted to this tree…It would be delightful to be storm-bound beneath one of these noble, hospitable, inviting old trees…”

Earlier than this, in the seventeenth century, an adolescent was converted and brought to God by a tree. He became Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, a monk admired for his steady “practice of the presence of God” and his humility. Almost four decades after his conversion he described the experience to his Abbe who recorded the conversation. “One winter’s day he saw a tree stripped of its leaves, and considered that sometime afterwards these leaves would appear again, followed by flowers and fruit. He then received a lofty awareness of the providence and power of God which never left him.” Well, of course. Who wouldn’t tend to react that way if he really thought about it? Botany and theology become one. (The Practice of the Presence of God)

J. Krishnamurti seems once to have spent the entirety of several days entranced and enlightened by a tree. At sunrise it became golden leaves filled with life, and “…as the hours pass by, that tree whose name does not matter—what matters is that beautiful tree—an extraordinary quality begins to spread all over the land, over the river.” Each hour reveals new tree qualities: brightness, liveliness, somberness, quietness, dignity. One may sit in the shade beneath it, “…never feeling lonely with the tree as your companion.” At sunset finally the tree rests. “If you establish a relationship with it, then you have relationship with mankind. You are responsible then for that tree and for the trees of the world. But if you have no relationship with the living things on this earth, you may lose whatever relationship you have with humanity…” Later, ending a meditation on the human propensity to kill, he extends this thought: “If we could, and we must, establish a deep, long abiding relationship with nature—with the actual trees, the bushes, the flowers, the grass, and the fast moving clouds—then we would never slaughter another human being for any reason whatsoever.” (My apology to the publisher from whose book I drew these thoughts; I have lost the reference.)

Even Martin Buber, who recognized Nature as a distinct realm of Thou relatedness without being very comfortable there himself, spoke about trees. He knew they could be “It,” a species, a botanical member of an ecosystem, just lumber. “In all this the tree remains my object…It can, however, also come about, if I have both will and grace, that in considering the tree I become bound up in relation to it.” And more: “The tree is no impression, no play of my imagination, no value depending on my mood; but it is bodied over against me and has to do with me, as I with it—only in a different way.” (I and Thou)

To paraphrase an old television commercial, “These are not your father’s trees.” (The vast majority of those have been clear-cut.) But they are real trees and possible relations. I have been to the forest, and with Muir and the others, I have met these trees.

Photo by Akshay Nanavati on Unsplash

Photo by Jackson Hendry on Unsplash