I walked up the hill behind my house this week, spring in my step, to visit my favourite trees.
I see everything and I’m watching you
It has been a year since I’ve last been to the patch of secondary woodland that perches above my neighbourhood, and I was excited to see the trees. I started looking for the first tree of the pair. As I got closer I realised I wasn’t sure which tree it was any longer. Thickets of birch had sprung up, obscuring the sycamore of which my tree was a member. It wasn’t a particularly remarkable tree by remarkable tree standards, but it featured a wizened eye on its trunk, the result of earlier branch growth. Other sycamores shared this feature, but my tree was different in the character of this eye. It seemed to be saying ‘I see everything and I’m watching you’.
I looked for ages, but couldn’t find the right eye. Eventually there it was, larger than I remember, and certainly older looking – the eye almost majestic, filling the width of the trunk as if opening in surprise. I did feel seen, and welcomed.
Of course, there had been a year of growth in the woodland whilst my memory had stayed fixed in time. Earlier this week. I’ve been working with a coach on why I was feeling a sense of overwhelm this spring. One of things I took away to do was to stop and reflect on progress I’ve been I’ve been making over time – not a habit of mine. To feel pride and momentum as an energy source to keep me moving forward.
The process of finding my old friend was a reminder that nothing stays still in nature. There is always progress and change – as there is always growth and decay. The amount of change can be surprising if we stop and look back.
Its tension felt alive
I walked on to find my other favourite tree. This one was easier – it has a distinctive and supportive lower branch on which I sometimes sit to conduct remote coaching sessions with my clients. From here I can see a wider area of woodland below, and in the distance the sea. As I sat down, I became aware of the noises around me. Chiffchaff, a pair of jays gently ratcheting, an angry bluetit whose domain I was disturbing. And on the estate below gangs of mowers and strimmers, noisily hacking the crap out of the new season’s growth, ahead of the Council’s imposition of ‘No Mow May’. I decided to climb the tree to find a different perspective.
I’d never climbed this tree before.
I felt a bit nervous at first, so I got to a place where it felt right to wrap my arms around the trunk. Pressing my ear to the smooth bark, I steadied myself and tried to block out the sound of the mowers. Tapping my fingers on the trunk, I noticed its tension. It felt alive, like a tight drum skin – and sounded bright and bell-like. A few leaves had begun to emerge with the season, just enough and in just the right place to keep me dry from the rain that was now falling. I began to feel calmer.
Compassion for nature
It was another opportunity to reflect. In my pocket I was carrying the ‘be kind’ practice from ‘Being in Nature‘, which reminds us to feel compassion for nature – and from nature. I took it out, looked around, and noticed I felt a sense of huge compassion for this tree. A common-or-garden sycamore perhaps, but without sycamore this woodland would not be a woodland. Sycamore trees host far fewer types of insect than, say, a pedunculate oak does, but they host in great numbers. An equivalent biomass to oaks, and more than most other British trees.
Climbing down, I walked through a clearing of cowslips and hoped the mowers down below had not done so much damage that people living on the estate wouldn’t have wildflowers next month. I wished that they look up or visit from time to time. I feel grateful for these trees, which help us connect to place, value it, and in my case gain perspective on life.