TREE DYNAMISM

The other day, as I was skiing along a quiet path in The Lung, I came around a familiar slightly uphill corner where three teenage balsam fir trees grow. They were all bowed down under the weight of snow, their crowns all bending outward from each other like a tri-plumed bouquet. The shorter ones bending all the way down, their tops anchored into the deep snow on the ground. 

As I reached the corner, the tree in the front suddenly sprung upright out of the drifts, flinging snow at me in a silver shower. “Hello to you too!” I exclaimed.

I’d never had a tree hop out onto the trail in front of me before. It was thrilling! We think of trees as beings who sway a bit on a really active day, not so much as beings prone to violent action unless uprooted or snapped off in extreme weather; borne on a wave of flood water or slamming downhill in a mudslide. The experience of an elastic youngster catapulting snow across me was brand new and exciting! It seemed playful, I was neither startled nor surprised. It felt like an affectionate taunt; like a friend lobbing a snowball at me. I stood for a moment until the tree settled back into its full upright position. I thought back to Tapio, the Finno-Urgic spirit of the forest I wrote about a while back in Entering The Lung. He seems like a dynamic, powerful trickster who may choose to play with you on a good day? I decided this must be the case and joyfully went on my way. 

I have skied this path a few times now since I wrote the above, and I am always happy to see the group of young trees as I round the corner. We have “a thing” together now. This may sound sappy, but I don’t care. Since reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer I see my relationship with nature differently. She kindly showed me that humans are regarded by the botanical world, and that they, the plants, need us. It changed my life. I stopped wishing for a soft extinction of our species. I feel like I belong to something now, even though I am virtually family-less. I feel so much happier. I have so much love and gratitude for her and those frisky trees.