"It is difficult to realize how great a part of all that is cheerful and delightful in the recollections of our own life is associated with trees."
~Wilson Flagg
This gratitude practice really has been illuminating. It amazes me how many things I (we) take for granted every day—the rich beauty that surrounds us that we pass by without noticing or thinking twice. Today I did something I don't normally do—I sat outside at lunchtime on a bench beneath a small grove of trees outside my office. I've worked there for four years and yet have never taken the time to just sit beneath these trees in silent appreciation. Watching sun dappled leaves swaying in the breeze and hearing the happy chirps of birdsong that filled the air, I was suddenly overcome with a feeling of deep appreciation. There is something glorious about trees in their mid-summer glory ~ bursting with vibrant energy and resplendent in their grace and beauty.
Memories from childhood came back to me...I realized how important trees were in my early years. There was the giant tree with a rope swing in our back yard, where my best friend Margaret and I spent countless hours and days playing, swinging, talking, laughing. There were the tangerine trees and avocado trees in our yard that provided delicious mid-day snacks. And there was the tree house that provided endless hours of imaginative play...as we enacted scenes from Flash Gordon or Peter Pan. Those memories are priceless. I don't know that I've thought of those trees much over the years. I appreciate them now.
As I sat beneath the trees today I began to think about how trees have played a prominent part in myth, literature, poetry, and film. I smiled as I thought of Disney's Johnny Appleseed (my friend Margaret's father Dennis Day was the voice of Johnny Appleseed, and I listened to the '45' of that song a lot!)...and there's Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, the tree in Swiss Family Robinson, Winnie the Pooh's Honey Tree, the baobab tree in The Little Prince, not to mention Avatar, the trees in Lord of the Ring, and of course the Tree of Knowledge, the Tree of Life, and the Bodhi Tree where Buddha attained enlightenment. Trees seem to represent something divine, a source of life, protection, support, majesty and grandeur. They are places where magic happens.
I began to appreciate all that trees teach us about the cycles and seasons of life, about patience, and about letting go. They teach us about possibility. What is the quote..."the lofty oak from a small acorn grows." Have you thought about how that happens? This tiny little acorn, planted in the soil, develops roots and grows into a seedling, a small tree, and eventually into a mighty oak tree. Is that not miraculous?!
Today I am in great gratitude and appreciation for all the trees of our earth, and all that they give to us.
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