A Septuagenarian Sings #9

How trees helped me resurrect, taught me to sing, and can now save our democracy

Photo by Degleex Ganzorig on Unsplash

"When I am among the trees...they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily."
Mary Oliver

I love emojis and stickers –incontrovertibly a sign that, at 69, I have happily embarked upon my second childhood. One of my favorite emojis depicts a tree with bright red hearts for leaves. Trees are my buddies, my inspiration, my guardians, my shamans, my guides, angels of cellulose, minerals, lignin, and light. And, because I have been a decently devout student of A Course in Miracles (ACIM) for the past three years, I am all about Love.

“Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them.”

I began writing this article on Valentines Day, 4 years and 2 days after a crucifixion of gaslighting and betrayal. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

Actually, I will say this:

1. I am grateful for the good times
2. I mourn the hot mess we made of things
3. My journey of healing was a Miracle, a ‘natural expression of love’ from the Angeles Forest. (Now do you see why I call trees angels?)

Daily, en route to the forest, I’d hike up a steep suburban hill. (More symbolism!) Healing from a broken heart is arduous, a cardiovascular workout on a treadmill of self-recrimination, rage, brooding, and 100-proof agony. Sweating blood moves beyond metaphor. Oh, that I’d known then what ACIM instructor extraordinaire Marianne Williamson taught me two days ago, on the exact anniversary of the most difficult day of my life.

“Someone is either loving me, or they can’t quite get there…The way of the miracle-worker is to see all human behavior as one of two things: either love, or a call for love.”

It’s as simple as that. The trick is to not try to understand it. Allow enlightenment to come suddenly upon you, like birdsong through a crack in the wall of a cave.

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At the portal into the forest, Tree awaited me. Beneath Tree’s canopy of burrs and leaves, I rested from the trek uphill – my lower back curving into a dent in the trunk as I sky-gazed or admired the creek at the foot of the cliff mere inches from my path. Often, because I was massively lonely - my chest so heavy it felt like anvils were pressing against it - I cried. Next, I’d shoot wrathful, frankly manipulative I trusted you texts to my ex.

Deer watched impassively from a nearby hill. They arrived so reliably, remaining rather than darting into the brush when I spoke to them, that I began to wonder if Gaia was sending me belated Valentines to make amends for my unutterably awful Valentines Day.

The Deer will also bring you its gentleness and love…This spiritual animal can help you through difficult times. It will show you that you have the energy to make a fresh start with even greater vigor and power. It will also guide you towards the path you can't find.

Fauna Project

Eventually, my soul would grow restless. I’d clamber up from the cool, damp ground, then hug Tree in gratitude.

Or perhaps gratitude had nothing to do with it. Perhaps I simply ached to ‘be held.’

I was a tree kisser, too. Nothing creepy or psychotic. A quick kiss. A reverent kiss. A token of gratitude willingly paid before entering an exquisite stretch of ‘highway’.

The Japanese have a term for walks amidst the trees: Shinrin-yoku/forest bathing.

At first, the forest bathed me without my even being aware of it. A hike is a hike is a hike. Yet I quickly caught on. How could I not, when I was emerging cleansed of pain…awash in peace…wrapped in a warm bathrobe of hope for incrementally longer periods of time?

Epiphanies began lining my path like pebbles and crackled leaves. From lichen I learned that, even in parched, shadowed places, ripeness flowers. Aloneness was revealed as illusion; solitude, as song.

These days, I am more likely to forest bathe in my bedroom – propped not against Tree but my headboard. I close my eyes, slow my breath, and envision a walk amidst trees with heart shaped leaves. Lindens, catalpas, alders, katsuras, and Japanese tree lilacs, whose blossoms are white rather than lavender. (Yes, they’re scented.) Sometimes, I enter a grove of emoji heart trees. Why not?

If you’re a regular reader, you’re aware my daughter/son in law/grandson lost their home in LA’s Eaton Canyon fire. We grieve the Loss - of house, cherished items and mementos, surety, dreams. We also mourn Glorious Pine, who graced what was the front lawn and from whose branches my grandson would swing. The city arborist advises removal. A report from a second, independent arborist isn’t quite as grim. Nor, however, is it encouraging. Glorious Pine’s chances of survival are roughly 20%.

I don’t care. I once faithfully – some would say obsessively – watered two trees everyone was convinced were dead. And guess what?

But what inspires me most is the 151-year-old banyan tree in Lahaina, Hawaii.

Banyan was never engulfed by flames, although half of Banyan’s branches died from the intense heat. Whether Pine is as fortunate I don’t know. I do know Pine deserves as much time as possible to work a miracle. Physician, heal thyself.

That said, I can water Pine, pray for Pine, hug Pine, love Pine. I can cling to Pine as City chainsaws approach…But if my daughter and son-in-law choose not to listen to me, massacre is inevitable.

Another freaking lesson in Surrender.
For Pine. For me.

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One afternoon in 2020, I was sick unto death of lockdown. So off I escaped to Descanso Gardens. As I meandered through the camellia forest – the camellias at Descanso are as tall as oaks – I heard singing. Not a ditty, not an aria, not Beyonce, not Taylor Swift, certainly not Rap. No lyrics. Simply voices – tenor, baritone, bass, soprano, mezzo – vocalizing, for lack of a better term.

I instantly thought of celestial choirs.

What I heard were separate recordings of nine choirs of eight voices and string instruments. Seventy-two speakers hidden throughout the property ‘sang’ as cued by timers.

The creator, Pete M. Wyer, titled the installation “The Sky Beneath Our Feet, an immersive music experience.”

I call it a sneak preview of what awaited me two years later, when I auditioned for a choir. And what awaits me in future, once I shed my body and am immersed within the mind of the Divine.

Meanwhile, Peter Wohlleben, author of The Hidden Life of Trees, has devoted his life to divining the ‘mind’ of trees.

“All the trees here, and in every forest that is not too damaged, are connected to each other through underground fungal networks,” he relates in an article in Smithsonian Magazine. “Trees share water and nutrients through the networks and also use them to communicate. They send distress signals about drought and disease, for example, or insect attacks, and other trees alter their behavior when they receive these messages.”

Adds Suzanne Simard, a researcher at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, in the same article, “Actually, it doesn’t make evolutionary sense for trees to behave like resource-grabbing individualists. They live longest and reproduce most often in a healthy stable forest. That’s why they’ve evolved to help their neighbors.”

I promised myself I wouldn’t get political. (I need a break, and no doubt so do you.) But do “resource-grabbing individualists” remind you of a certain parasite and his minions?

Trees saved me. Can they save our nation?

Stay tuned.