When I was a little girl, I was sitting in our old apple tree. There, high up in the branches, hidden from the world I felt safe and my little world was at peace.
Later, as an adult when I started traveling, I always looked at the native trees in every country I visited. The Olive trees in Greece, the Japanese trees, the old African trees…there is something about it, especially if one stands alone. Silent giants who have so much to tell.
“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 fulfill 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.”
Herman Hesse “Wanderings” (Baeume)
What a great metaphor of life and spirituality, regardless if you believe in a God or not. I have read this numerous times in my life, in German and in English and it always brings things back into perspective for me.
Beautiful!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yet one more thing we share in common! My eyes are attracted first to the trees – or the lack thereof.
Occasionally I’ll see a cluster of trees that I can only describe as *sentinels*. They seem to have a formality of purpose in standing there … like as silent witnesses.
I can’t imagine living somewhere without trees!
LikeLiked by 1 person
How are you feeling, do I have to send you a care package with hand cream 🙂
LikeLike
haha! I’m just having a Monkey year. As long as these endless irritations stay in the realm of only being annoying and don’t get serious, I’ll try to whimper as softly as possible 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
You can whimper anytime. I am just glad you are feeling better.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lovely Post!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for sharing this at the Salon today. It is such moving piece and your illustrations are perfect. I find the black and white one particularly moving.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love black and white pictures. I think they show more than the colored pictures do. Thank you for reminding me at the Senior Salon, Bernadette.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Always my pleasure
LikeLike
Did you know that every kind of tree has their own voice? The shape of the leaves, the size of them, etc. make each kind of tree sound different from the others in the breeze. And the greatest lesson they teach us, that we have to be strong enough to bend. Only then will be not break.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like the saying “No tree it is said can grow to heaven unless his roots reach down to hell.”
Nature is just amazing.
LikeLike
Beautiful words. Trees fill me with happiness and I marvel at their enormity sometimes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I do to. There is a group of old trees in the forest were I walk the dogs. They are amazing, it’s like they have faces carved in the bark. I always wonder how much they have seen. I call them silent giants.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That is what they are
LikeLiked by 1 person
The best thing one can do is to plant trees. Whenever we move house, we always leave more trees than before. A good post. Posts about trees are always welcome.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have never read this passage. I found the whole post moving but the section regarding the attempt the eternal mother in creating us makes us unique is something I plan on memorizing. Maybe you might want to share this at the Salon.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am glad you like it Bernadette. I will gladly share it. Thank you for inviting me.
LikeLike
great post
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you!@
LikeLiked by 1 person
welcome
LikeLiked by 1 person