A tree is a thing of wonder

Do you have a relationship with a particular tree or trees?

This morning I looked out my bedroom window across the road at a pair of pine trees and I realized how much I'll miss them when we move to our new home. Almost the hardest things to leave behind when we last moved were my two beloved birch trees, one that grew outside our kitchen, the other outside my writing room. They became such companions to me as I watched them through the four seasons: the catkins of spring, the tender green leaves and the way they'd quiver in the breeze, the golden pennies of autumn, the bare skeleton of the branches in winter, and always, always the beautiful bark.

There's already a spruce in our new front garden, but maybe I'll plant a birch in the back.

I've always been focussed more on the inner life than outer nature. Now, in this third age, I'm striving to redress the balance. Take the middle way, as it were. However, it was some twenty five or more years ago when I first developed a relationship with a tree. I had to spend ten days in hospital in Cape Town. My ward looked over the Main Road to Claremont public gardens, a place much favoured for wedding photographs. Directly opposite my window, though, grew a beautiful fir. As I lay for long hours, looking at the shape, the colour, the branches, the needles, something began to reach out and touch me, as it were. There was a kind of stirring in my soul. Yes, surely, a tree is a wonderful thing!