Etiqueta: ecosystem

FLOWERING DOGWOOD TREE

TREES AND THEIR BEAUTY

Trees amaze me with their beautiful majesty. Since I was a little girl I loved to climb them up. The taller the better, all kinds, woody, fruity, with flowers…and never fell.

Being on top of a tree made me feel so happy and peaceful, looking at the horizon at dawn or sunset, and the blue beautiful sky. Feeling the breeze caressing my face, my neck, my arms, was an experience that I will never forget, an experience that I remember and hold dear in my heart.

JAPANESE MAPLE TREE

I agree with the German poet and philosopher, Herman Hesse, who said: “Trees are sanctuaries. When we have learned to listen to trees… that is home. That is happiness.” — I am quoting his book Trees: Reflections and Poems.

Dr. Hesse makes the philosophical case, and how they are the key to essential notions of truth, beauty, home, belonging and happiness.

There is a Japanese saying: «taking in the forest atmosphere’ or ‘forest bathing’, which is currently back in fashion as a popular type of preventive health care and healing in Japanese medicine.

Forests, earth cannot live without them. Trees give oxygen, beauty, food for fauna, cover, protection and shelter for many animals.

MAJESTIC ANGEL OAK

Just like me, Fiona Stafford, an arboreal contributor and the author of The Long, Long Life of Trees, has had a love of trees since childhood. She says: “Trees seem to create a different world within themselves, not just in terms of the wildlife but as imaginative spheres where things seem possible that might not be in the everyday working world.”

WISTERIA TREE

She finds something “very soothing”, she says, about “a huge familiar object that is so full of life and just quietly nurtures all the things that live within its canopy.” Stafford points to classic children’s literature from Robin Hood to The Wind in the Willows. “And Frances Hardinge’s recent award-winning book The Lie Tree may well be a classic of the future.”

Stafford thinks trees, in fact, can make us happier:

“Trees appeal to all the senses,” she points out.  “Fresh smells, the sound of moving leaves and birdsong, the texture of the bark – all of these are appealing, especially in modern cities… They connect us to others, whether contemporaries or those in the past or future. If you plant a sapling that may take 200 years to reach its full stature, you are pledging faith in the future and offering a gift to the generations yet to be born. That’s a pretty good feeling.”

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