Thoughts on Trees

Just found this essay by Herman Hesse - his thoughts and feeling about trees.  Says it all really...and so beautifully

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

 A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”
 

Stoicism

A twisted, broken old tree has much to teach us about life, if we would only stand and pay attention to it for a while.

Scarred, broken, its limbs twisted, its trunk gnarled, the old tree stands in the field like a bloodied boxer defiantly carrying on the fight.  Its beauty has long faded and it no longer stands tall and erect but bent and stooped under the heavy blows that the storms of its life have inflicted upon it.  Deep lines and grooves are imprinted on its trunk like the lines and wrinkles on the face of an old man or woman.  Our life experiences, whether we are man, beast of plant, are etched indelibly into our features and our soul.  Beauty has been replaced now by character and the tree draws you in as you observe it and tells its story with every furrow and gash, wound and weakened branch.  It tells of long, dark days and nights and battles with the elements that elicit feelings of pity and sadness for its condition. Perhaps my thoughts have diffused into the atmosphere and the tree has inhaled them with the air, for my eyes are directed more searchingly about the tree. There is more to its story. It is embattled and old yet it stands firm, roots deep in the earth and rock drawing life from the soil and water.  It has felt the heat of the sun, had birds singing from its branches and easy days of just being alive to the universe.  The hard winters give way to spring when renewed energy and new life flow through it.  It knows that life is a process of changing seasons, of ebb and flow, scarcity and plenty.  So it stands there, that old oak tree, telling its tale of stoicism and endurance and faith in the future.

Nature has much to teach us if we only stop and observe.  Trees have an important lesson to share about acceptance and fortitude.  John Cowper Powys (1872-1963), lecturer, philosopher, literary critic, and poet thought that where life is concerned, we should ‘Accept! Defy! Enjoy!'  This philosophy for living is one that could be ascribed to that tree. Powys believed that stoicism and acceptance are important characteristics to develop for they are the means to a more contented life.  He wasn’t saying that we can’t or shouldn’t change things, quite the opposite, for he firmly believed in our ability to create change.  But there is a right time for action and sometimes we have to just ride out the storm, accept things as they are for the time being, and carry on with courage, enjoying the small pleasures available to us.  Fighting, raging inside about a particular situation can make matters worse and achieve nothing but more suffering and unhappiness.  Sometimes, it is better to bide our time, cope with the prevailing conditions, weather the storms of life and when they subside, act, fight, create change, do whatever needs to be done.  Stoicism is almost an old-fashioned word and idea now but it a useful tool with which to arm ourselves against the inevitable storms of life. 

What Trees have to say...

 “For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
 

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.
So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy.  Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree.  He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”     

                                                           Hermann Hesse (1877 - 1962)