A Tree Cannot Know Exile

Every home or any place called home needs a sacred tree. Doesn’t matter if it is sprawling or skinny, just so long as it belongs without any question.

Imagine what it must feel like when that place you call home, whether locally or across the world, is stripped of any or all trees that have been standing there holding hands for hundreds of years.

Once, when I lived for a few months in the beautiful Tuscan hills of Italy, I found my way every morning to a special writing place beneath one of three gigantic chestnut trees. Some locals said these trees were 500 years old! As we all know from grade school, to know a tree’s age you count its rings that are hidden from sight until the tree is felled. When the tree is no longer itself, its circles appear before our eyes. I ask you, would you rather look upward at the majestic beauty reaching skyward or cast your eyes downward to count the rings on the remaining stump?

One morning in the shadow of the Apennine Mountains, I made my usual trek up the path, writing pad in hand. I suddenly stopped and stood for what felt like an eternity. Those three trees were gone! When I could finally move, I walked up to one, then another, then a third massive, perfectly smooth stump and ran my hand over yesterday’s stronghold. Today, I could only cry: Who did this to you?

Villagers were furious and without knowing what they said in Italian, they clearly shared the same sentiment. Who? Why?

This sad story is playing out everywhere, Wherever you call home there undoubtedly has stood a fully grown tree long before you showed up, quietly in service, shading and cooling the earth while filtering the air, simultaneously. Too often, these very necessary and important friends of ours are the first to go when a developer rapes the land to build as many houses as possible in their place. A house is not a home. Soon after the massacre of acres and acres of grown and growing trees, the tiniest little saplings replace their elders only to face the same fate some day. The average lifespan of our tree friends is being systematically cut, even as we require more clean air to counteract global overheating. The tragedy that happened that fateful night in Italy when the utility company came through doing the henchman’s dirty work while everyone was asleep, is unforgivable. Shame is all that remains in those Sacred trees stead.

Twenty years is a short time in a tree’s life, but for me, those years that I have had the benefit of one tree friend in my field of vision day and night, has mattered to my way of connecting beyond the screened lanai. There are others that have come to matter to me, like the one I will soon revisit in Norwich, England. I pray the sprawling Cedar’s arms will be there where it belongs beside the man made Cathedral waiting for my return.