trees

Tree Work

/ nagneberg48 / 16 Comments

June 6, 2024

Turning to the day
and to each other
        We open ourselves to the day
        and each other.

This is the day that the Lord Has made
and a day we'll have to make our way through.
                 from Being Here, Prayers for Curiosity, Justice and Love by Padraig O Tuama

What a sad week for our block. We lost fourteen friends earlier this week. Diseased ash trees marked for destruction.

I took a memorial Monday morning, saying goodbye to the tress marked with a green end of life ring. I thanked them for their gifts of beauty and shade and shelter for birds and squirrels. To those allowed to live, I encouraged them to continue growing and to stay well. I thanked them for their ongoing presence.

We have been told that trees communicate with each other, and I wonder what their last conversations were. Did they say goodby to each other? How did they recognize and honor one another?

Before arriving home from my walk the trucks and workers had arrived, and the signs blocking sidewalks and streets were in place.

I defied the warning of danger and walked the last block home, instead of the alley. A couple neighbors stood on their steps as the action began, and I greeted them, “It’s a sad day.” “How different it will be,” one replied.

I was drawn to the snug, the room at the front of the house, feeling a need to be a witness to the lives that were ending. I moved my laptop from the garret to the desk in the snug, even though I knew the noise would be disruptive. That felt like the least I could do.

The noise began and as each tree lost its life, I heard a kind of death rattle. The men in their yellow vests did their jobs. Expertly, respectfully, but even though I know trees have life spans, too, and are subject to disease, this felt like a failure. And now those of us left will need to adjust to a new reality. That includes the birds and the squirrels. Some may lose their nests, even, but at the very least a playground, their perch and window on the world.

As Padraig O Tuoma says in his prayer, “This is the day that the Lord has made and a day we’ll have to make our way through.

Writing a Collect

In Being Here, O Tuoma’s new book of prayers, he includes a collect for each of the 31 days of meditations. A collect, pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable, COLLect, is a form of “collecting something; namely your intention and desire, your reflection and attention, your gratitude, and your need for containment.” O Tuoma explains that the collect has five folds:

  1. Name the one you’re praying to
  2. Unfold the name of the one you’re praying to
  3. Name one desire
  4. Unfold the desire you’ve names
  5. Finish with a bird of praise

Bird of praise? Well, O Tuoma, doesn’t really know either, but says why not? Most collects I’ve read end simply with an Amen.

He simplifies the form even more:

  • Address
  • Say more
  • Ask one thing
  • Say more
  • End

Here is an example of a collect from Being Here:

Grandmothers of Jesus,
In your stories we hear of your
courage and creativity,
your tenacity,
and the things you faced down.
Here, today, we stand in the time after you
and look back,
with gratitude for stories like yours
that help us live today.
Help us live today
in all the stories of our lives
so that we can stand in your great
ache and wash.
Amen.

It occurs to me to write a collect, addressing the trees on our block, as a way to mark the day. Collects most often address God, by the way, but that is not always the case. In fact, Sunday I wrote a collect to my calendar and list for the week, giving thanks for the ways they remind me to be in the world, to use my gifts and energy, and to remember to pause. Here’s my collect for the trees:

Oh dear trees, sacred trees
Signs of God's love for all creation.
Reminders of the genius and beauty 
of diversity, of transformation, of the need 
for both grounding and stretching.
You have graced us with your presence, 
given shelter and protection,
inspired us 
as teachers, revealers, companions.
May our lives, even as we mourn your loss,
be signs of God's divinity on earth.
May we nurture new growth
both within our hearts
and along the avenues of our lives.
Amen.

An Invitation

Has there ever been a special tree in your life? I would love to know.

Book Report: The Overstory by Richard Powers

/ nagneberg48 / 8 Comments

November 10, 2022

I’m not sure why I finally decided to read this book. It has been on my “fiction yet to be read” bookshelf for a long time. Often when I finally take a delayed plunge I wonder why I waited so long, and this was the case with The Overstory by Richard Powers.

Perhaps I finally settled into this big book (500 pages) because I had discarded several books I put on hold at the library. The descriptions of each of those books appealed, but after reading the first few pages I knew they would not satisfy a barely perceptible itch for something more substantial.

Perhaps I finally turned to The Overstory because of the season and how much more aware I am of trees as they shed their leaves and reveal their bones.

Perhaps I was influenced by the paperback release of Richard Powers most recent book, Bewilderment.

Perhaps after reading thirteen books last month, I was ready to settle into the world of one book.

This is a novel about trees–their significance and how we treat them. That is a simple statement, but this book is not simple.

In the first section, “Roots” we meet nine main characters. Yes, nine, and each one is essential. We learn their backstories, each one fascinating, and then in later sections, “Trunk,” “Crown” and “Seeds,” we learn how some of them interconnect as tree defenders and for others the understanding of the essentialness of trees is discovered in more solitary ways.

As I read further and further into the book, I thought about a walk I took almost every day when we lived in Ohio. Sometimes our old dog Boe went with me, sniffing and shuffling along the trail. At the beginning of my walk a large oak tree, a tree I thought of as the Grandfather tree, welcomed me each day. I often stood in front of the tree, taking several deep breaths, before veering off onto the trail along a small lake. Boe was always eager to get moving, but I needed a moment to settle myself and find the rhythm of the day and to listen to what whispers the tree might offer. Further on I encountered another large, very large tree, with a sizable opening at the base of the tree. I imagined this was where Peter Pan and the Lost Boys descended into their underground world. Once I peered into the hole, almost as tall as I am, hoping I could hear them. There were other trees at other stages of their lives, juveniles reaching into the sky or fallen elders, still present, but giving life and wisdom in more discreet ways.

I didn’t think much on my walks about how trees are above and beyond and deeper than humanity and how they are our ancestors, but I think at some essential core, I knew that. Powers clearly knows that and wants us to know it, too, and his beautiful and passionate writing creates and reinforces that knowing.

If you’re holding a sapling in your hand when the Messiah arrives, first plant the sapling and then go out and greet the Messiah.

page 89

…a great truth comes over him: Trees fall with spectacular crashes. But planting is silent and growth is invisible.

page 89

Now they only need to learn what life wants from humans. It’s a big question to be sure. Too big for people alone. But people aren’t alone, and they never have been.

page 489

This book is not an easy read, but that’s not a good enough reason not to read it. You might want to consult one of the many reviews of this book for some guiding insight. Here’s one: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/books/review/overstory-richard-powers.html

I look out our front window and realize the ash trees along the boulevard (or as it is called in Cleveland, the “tree lawn,” which I think is a wonderful name) are at the end of their lives and soon we won’t benefit from their shade and their energy. How sad that makes me, and I think about a Chinese saying Powers quotes, “When is the best time to plant a tree? Twenty years ago.”

This book is Powers’ contribution to increasing awareness and call to action regarding climate change. What will be your contribution?

An Invitation:

What big books are waiting for your attention? I would love to know.

Note:

One of my favorite nonfiction books about trees is The Healing Energies of Trees by Patrice Bouchardon (1999), but I also have on my TBR list To Speak for the Trees, My Life’s Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest by Diana Beresford-Kroeger.