Trees are some of my best friends. I’ve gotten to know a few on my journey and I have to say I’ve learned more from them than I have many humans. Trees have personality but they are never intrusive. They have wisdom to share, but never with arrogance or judgement. They tend to be shy in that it is not easy to get to know them and they tend to have very little to say, but they do have their stories to tell. You just have to be quiet and still enough to hear them and you have to approach them on their time, with patience.
There’s a good friend on Gregory Bald in the Smokies. An old pine that doesn’t look like it belongs there. It has no siblings visible nearby and it does not take the shape of a typical tall, slender, tapered Christmas tree shape. In fact, it looks more like a Southern Live Oak from the Carolina coast with its long gangling limbs that reach out and touch the ground. It stands exposed on one of the few true balds that remain in the park and it’s hard to tell if its presence owes to defiance of the weather or if there is some other influence. We’ve spent many a lunchtime picnic together and we have shared sunrises and sunsets when I’ve had the honor to camp nearby. How many hundreds of sunsets has it witnessed? How many humans has it sheltered from the sun on a hot afternoon? It is my intention to spend a night in its embrace, waiting quietly in contemplation for a whisper of the universe.
This gentleman, was introduced in the summer of 2022 in Northern California on the PCT. I named it “John’s Tree”. Here is a note from my journal: “I’m sitting under a tree – John’s Tree. Pine needles at the base, gnarly, wide, stumpy trunk. It felt like I was being hugged when I sat down.” It seems John Muir visits me often and he was certainly there that day, with me in the embrace of his tree.
Sequoias and redwoods seem like they are from another planet but it is we who are the aliens. They are the oldest beings of creation, other than the rocks and mountains themselves. There is no more sacred cathedral then being in a grove of these majestic creatures. They have a perspective spanning millennia and they will gladly share it if you sit for a while and are quiet enough to hear them whisper.
I met this youngster on the PCT in Northern California. The thing is, this creature was the only one of its kind I met in the 500 miles of that trip. Being about a hundred yards off trail, I bushwhacked down to make acquaintance. There it stood, with all the confidence and purpose of a young adult, stretching out to make their mark on the planet. I asked, “why are you here, all alone from your kind? And how did you get here in the first place?” “That is not important,” came the reply, “only that I am here and plan to stay for a while. There will be others in time.” That gave me hope.
Even trees who have long passed have stories to tell. The first time I met this creature was on a drive around Crater Lake on vacation with my wife, Alice. This is one of the many vistas just off Rim Drive, where tourists by the thousands stop for selfies. This particular tree is iconic and people line up to grab a picture of it or with it. That day, I waited very impatiently as a couple teenagers were posing for their fantasy cover shots, self absorbed, oblivious to the magic around them. But this picture was captured on a day when I was hiking the Rim Trail and I had a few precious moments in solitude with a creature who had met many more people than I ever will. I imagined how spectacular a site this must have been when this tree reached its splendor out and upward in praise to the Creator. I asked “How do you feel about so many people taking you for granted, important only for a backdrop of a photo bound for social media?” “What is important is that they stop, even for a few minutes, to be here. To see this sacred place, and take a small piece of it with them.” I do not know when the elements will finally release its roots from the sacred connection trees have with the Earth. I hope it is another hundred years, but that will be a sad day. I wonder if anyone will notice or even commemorate the lifetime and legacy of this special creature. Trees have the power to continue living and telling their stories, long after they stop breathing.
It’s often the trees that stand out alone that catch catch my attention. Maybe they look out of place or maybe there is a special character that invites me to stop for a moment and make acquaintance. But it’s the forest that gives me the most comfort as a fellow creature. A host of beings that welcome you into their home.. Their beauty is in their collective presence, not in any particular individual’s contribution. A community… A welcome, safe place. A home in a moment of eternity.
Humans have the blessing, or curse, of the awareness of time. The price we pay for this thing that makes us uniquely human, is that we have knowledge of life and death and we know grief. John of the Mountains said, “on no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than of death. Instead of the friendly sympathy, the union of life and death so apparent in Nature, we are taught that death is an accident, a deplorable punishment for the oldest sin, the arch-enemy of life.” Many hikers choose to detour around burned forests, but I find solace, beauty… rebirth and hope… in a wood where fire passed through. Rather than death, desolation and grief, I see new beginnings and the Earth preparing for the future. The threshold of death invites us into eternity. I believe the trees know that. Life is loaned to us and it is never gone. We pay it forward to those who come after.
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