ROOTED AND GROUNDED

 

Taking a ‘long, loving look at the real’ has become more possible for some during lockdown when there’s time to stop and do just that. The tree that greets me each time I walk down Plum Lane invites me to halt and look ‘at the real’.

See the plants at its base - bark and bird, squirrels, and, depending on the season, leaves on branches.  And if I stand long enough and gaze more lovingly, I notice its ‘tree-ness’: its strong presence and at-one-ness with nature.  Not just the moss and lichen on its bark but those microscopic, white, underground threads that connect with other shrubs and trees – that ‘wood-wide web’ as it’s been described – which, although unseen, is there.  I sense its power and the wonder of its being and that fills me with that same sense – wonder – at what I can see and touch, and what is hidden from sight.  And, if I want to deepen that, I begin to find words to express what I feel.  I can ‘talk to the tree’ and sense its gratitude; and I can give thanks to the One who enabled its being.

It is the great trunk I initially see, a body telling of age, strength, stability, and silence, like an ancient abbey that has stood in the same place for centuries.  Through the seasons of the year and the seasons of humankind – of peace and plenty, war and loss – it is there.  Then, beginning to raise my eyes, I see its majestic crown; boughs raising themselves to the skies like arms which must be uplifted.  Branches which reach up and up because that’s what the tree needs to do – to stretch out to the light. The highest like long, slender, spidery fingers emerging from hands connected to the heart; shoots moving in the breeze whose leaves breathe oxygen and take in carbon dioxide and connect with the deepest roots hidden beneath the earth.  High branches straining to heaven, like incense curling from the censor, prayerful desires giving out (and taking in) that the tree might live and, in doing so, give life.  But its roots, too, though hidden are vital for its life.  And, why all this magnificence?  From this great oak to a small snowdrop each strains for the sun to be enlivened, to produce leaf and petal, to multiply and fill the earth.  Each year, it returns its growth to the earth so that life can continue - and, when it dies, its body will decay and, in decaying, give life to the earth.

We, of course, are like trees.  Crowned with our spectacular life, needing to give for our own sake and the sake of all, as well as take.  Take but, more importantly, be rooted in deep darkness where we are fed.  Does Western, ‘advanced’, society value and feed roots?  Are we encouraged to nurture that life which cannot be seen so that, at times such as this when we can feel so alone, our hidden roots connect with all so we can be nourished meaning, as the psalmist said, that all the trees of the wood can shout for joy (Ps. 96.12).  What do we return to the earth which has given us so much?  What do we return to this planet which has enabled our life so that others may live?

When I am among the trees,                                                

especially the willows and the honey locust,            
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”

Mary Oliver