Spoke To A Tree The Other Day

[Mr. Majestic]

Not sure if this goes here or not, but Wednesday I met with my old English prof. and she was showing me around her old campus. We'd talked about my issues of faith, my issues of identity, and the book Of Water and the Spirit by Malidoma Some. And eventually we come to a tree, the oldest tree on that campus, and she told me to talk to it, to tell it about myself. So I did.

 

While I was talking to the tree I felt like someone was listening. I felt like the tree was letting me ramble on so I could come to certain conclusions about myself. I don't know how to explain it but when I was through I felt clear. And when I think about it I feel a little more aware. It's weird but it felt like it was sentient. Don't know just letting out some thoughts.

[jdog]

I wanna cry. Come here my fellow tree lover. I am a tree hugger myself, literally. Maybe it's a similar thing. there is a most definite connection, I sense the tree feels me and senses my emotion and it 'knows'. I talk to my plants and trees in my garden, not in the way you have explained, just to say I love them, maybe I'll try what you did. Talking to a living solid, growing, feeling tree is far more tangible than talking to an invisible, imagined sky person. Makes sense to me.

[hereticzero]

I talk to my plants and trees around the house. I have come across some old trees that do seem to have a spiritual-like quality. It is kind of spooky. I like it.

[Vomit Comet]

I had a close friend who claimed he could communicate with animals kind of like St. Francis of Assisi.

[Heavenslaughing]

Recent science shows that plants have a greater awareness of their surroundings than we might expect. Anytime anyone has checked empirically whether plants "listen," the results have come out positive. Plants do indeed grow better when spoken to. On Mythbusters, the growth in the greenhouse with a stereo left on suggested that plants like music even better! What's more, plants communicate with each other when under attack: they release chemicals either repellent to their predator or attractive to the predators of their predator, and nearby plants pick up on these signals. http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/agrawal/publica...ants%20talk.pdf

 

What you're describing here, the sense of the tree listening in a meaningful sense, passes beyond the realm of what science can measure, but maybe it does make some sort of sense to speak of trees growing wise. I wish I could find the link, but some other studies showed plants responding not just to the proximity of species, but to specific members of a species who had hurt or helped it. Maybe the tree genuinely has developed a "sense" for a person's character over time.

 

The experience of connection with the tree would have validity with or without this science, but I find it nifty that empirical observation backs up what you're saying.

[Mr. Majestic]

Thanks everyone. I thought I was going completely insane. I was wondering if there are any I don't know spiritual practices that could expand on my experience with the tree? Oh and Jdog let me know how talking to a tree goes for you.

[Guest Zenobia]

I love talkng to trees and just walking among them. I own 6 acres of forest land (if its really possible to own forest...lol...) and sometimes I just walk outside under the trees and talk to them. I totally get what you mean by "sentient"... and I think maybe trees, maybe all plants, are sentient in their own way. We've always described "sentient" according to human standards and values such as having frontal lobes, intellect and opposible thumbs... but other species have different environmental needs and so they developed different ways of coping.

 

I believe my cats are sentient and I talk with them all the time, mostly in my own language ... but lately I've been learning their language. A language of few words, mostly body postures, and hyper sensitivity to scents, sights and tactile vibrations... They live in an amazing world.

 

Plants have their own language too, just as Heavenslaughing desccibed above... and who are we to judge whether it is a sentient language or not. For all we know, the trees may be just really slow thinkers, rather like the Entish in Lord of the Rings - and they are still getting ready to respond to something humans said 25,000 years ago. LOL!

 

Anyway, I find a lot of comfort in the presence of trees and I actually feel like crying sometimes when I see them getting cut down, or when I drive by a mill where they are being cut up into boards to build more houses for our sprawling, invasive species.

[Trev]

Thanks everyone. I thought I was going completely insane. I was wondering if there are any I don't know spiritual practices that could expand on my experience with the tree? Oh and Jdog let me know how talking to a tree goes for you.

 

At least you know the tree exists

[jdog]

Zenobia, your home sounds wonderful with all that forest land.

 

Anyway, I find a lot of comfort in the presence of trees and I actually feel like crying sometimes when I see them getting cut down, or when I drive by a mill where they are being cut up into boards to build more houses for our sprawling, invasive species.

When I went back to my home country of England after being away for a long time, I actually did cry, I was so sad to see the changes. A highway had been built and cut through farmland and trees. It use to be a picturesque country road from the village where I use to live to the nearest town, a route I use to cycle to and fro often.

 

Close to where I live now in DE, there is this tree, it must have been fairly old, I would always look at it when I drove by. I was so sad and shocked when I noticed it had been cut down and just it's freshly sawn off trunk stub was left behind. It was close to a house, so I presumed its roots were becoming invasive and causing damage.

 

Mr. Majestic. I sure will. On the property where I live now, I have new trees and shrubs growing. I live near woods but they are not accessable. I do have a particular tree in mind though, I live not too far from a park where there is this huge tree, oak maybe? it actually has a plaque in front of it stating how old it is and some other info which I have forgotten. I would like to go there, it seems I am drawn to it, I suppose because of how large and old it is.

[BlueGiant]

Can't say I've ever talked to a tree (let alone had conversations with one), just doesn't seem to work for me. Now the land or a feature in general, that I do get feelings from, and have occasionally felt a certain degree of intelligence and emotion from it (even if a bit mean, in the case of Lake Michigan).

[Guest Zenobia]

Zenobia, your home sounds wonderful with all that forest land.

 

 

When I went back to my home country of England after being away for a long time, I actually did cry, I was so sad to see the changes. A highway had been built and cut through farmland and trees. It use to be a picturesque country road from the village where I use to live to the nearest town, a route I use to cycle to and fro often.

 

Close to where I live now in DE, there is this tree, it must have been fairly old, I would always look at it when I drove by. I was so sad and shocked when I noticed it had been cut down and just it's freshly sawn off trunk stub was left behind. It was close to a house, so I presumed its roots were becoming invasive and causing damage.

 

You know... this may sound weird... but when I see a lumber mill, it reminds me of holocaust films... (Please don't take offense - I am a Jew too, but I really feel this way and it really upsets me). The trees are brought in with their bark and some branches remaining, then sorted into different "lots" depending on how valuable they are... then their bark is shorn off and they are "processed"... into various boards, posts, plywood or paper or fucking toothpicks... whatever we humans need no matter how trivial as long as we have our 'status quo' - doesn't matter what other species have to sacrifice to maintain our neverending selfishness... Have you ever been to a meat processing plant? Its the same basic set-up. Animals are sorted, then slaughtered in the most "economic" way... I'm sure the Nazis knew this and "borrowed" a lot of their ideas from slaughter houses.

 

No I'm not an eco-terrorist and I recognize the need for wood as a construction material among other things... it's just the wholesale way it's destroyed with only some companies seeming to give any thought to sustainability. Other products such as hemp have been proven to be so versitile and eco-friendly - yet trees continue to be slashed down at an alarming rate. Why is that??? I'm from the Pacific Northwest and it rips my heart out every time I fly over the mountains where I grew up. They are like sheered lambs.

 

Its sad that your old tree was cut down just because it's roots got in the way of some human dwelling which is probably a fraction of the age of the tree they destroyed...

 

I won't cut down any of the trees on my land, unless they are dying or spreading disease to other trees. But our "born again Christian" neighbor greedily chopped down every tree worth money just two weeks after we moved in. He chopped down truckload after truckload... I'm told each tree was worth $2500. Then he had the audacity to claim he was just doing it to "improve the neighborhood and give us all more sunlight" - I didn't move here for sunlite! I moved here for the trees. The fucker said he was going to start a "christmas tree farm." Of course 3 years later he still hasn't planted any new trees and now his spoiled sons ride their dirt bikes all over the big dirt piles where the trees used to stand.

[Hineni]

I talk to and touch my plants. I've also been known to talk to the trees wherever it is that I reside and give them a good old pat on the trunk. I don't expect any communication from them, of course, but it gives me a great sense of peace.

 

They are, afterall, living things.

[Ouroboros]

You shouldn't worry about talking to trees, it's when they talk back you should worry. And btw, is the tree god a form of treenity?

[Pecker]

I think someone needs to get a dog...maybe a cat.

 

www.petfinder.cm

[Guest Zenobia]

I have 4 cats. But I still love trees. What is your point, Pecker?

[PandaPirate]

That's awesome that you had that experience.

 

About ten years ago I had a patio garden and every morning around 4 a.m. I would go out on the patio and put on some soft music and talk to my plants. It was a very special time for me. It was like they were my friends.

 

At some point I left on vacation for three days and even though it had rained, they were all dying! It was really sad. But they came back the next day!!!!

[babysealclubber]

Recent science shows that plants have a greater awareness of their surroundings than we might expect. Anytime anyone has checked empirically whether plants "listen," the results have come out positive. Plants do indeed grow better when spoken to. On Mythbusters, the growth in the greenhouse with a stereo left on suggested that plants like music even better! What's more, plants communicate with each other when under attack: they release chemicals either repellent to their predator or attractive to the predators of their predator, and nearby plants pick up on these signals. http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/agrawal/publica...ants%20talk.pdf

 

What you're describing here, the sense of the tree listening in a meaningful sense, passes beyond the realm of what science can measure, but maybe it does make some sort of sense to speak of trees growing wise. I wish I could find the link, but some other studies showed plants responding not just to the proximity of species, but to specific members of a species who had hurt or helped it. Maybe the tree genuinely has developed a "sense" for a person's character over time.

 

The experience of connection with the tree would have validity with or without this science, but I find it nifty that empirical observation backs up what you're saying.

 

Err, almost.

 

Empirical evidence doesn't support what the OP said. As far as science is concerned, plants are not sentient beings.

Yes, plants communicate with each other. Link

Yes, there is evidence that plants respond to sound, or more specifically to vibrations. However, the response isn't necessarily beneficial to the plants in every situation. Link

 

That's all science supports at this time. Of course, if someone enjoys the activity, that shouldn't stop them.

 

Respectfully,

A Plant Scientist In Training.

[Guest Jinkies~!]

Err, almost.

 

Empirical evidence doesn't support what the OP said. As far as science is concerned, plants are not sentient beings.

Yes, plants communicate with each other. Link

Yes, there is evidence that plants respond to sound, or more specifically to vibrations. However, the response isn't necessarily beneficial to the plants in every situation. Link

 

That's all science supports at this time. Of course, if someone enjoys the activity, that shouldn't stop them.

 

Respectfully,

A Plant Scientist In Training.

Every time I hear about plant communication in botany books, i keep thinking about the move 'The Happening'. I think the trees are planning our doom. Be afraid, be very afraid.

[The Sage Nabooru]

I heard the Japanese believe that after a hundred years, everything gains its own soul. This leads to some pretty interesting ghosts - like the umbrella-ghosts or lamp-ghosts. (It would explain why something like an art museum or library could be haunted.) So maybe very old trees "earn" souls, or are able to build up one over time.

[MultifariousBirdLady]

Mr. Majestic,

I think your experience is very cool, and I don't think you're nuts at all. There are many people who connect deeply with other living things, natural landscapes, etc. I think it's a good thing and wish more people took the time to make those connections.

 

With respect to expanding on that experience, there are various exercises and meditations along those lines that I've seen from different traditions. I know some Pagans really get into that, for example. One book you might like, which is not dealing so much with individual trees but with nature as a whole, is called "Awake in the Wild" by Mark Coleman. It uses a lot of Buddhist meditation techniques.

 

By profession I'm a landscape architect, so that's where I'm coming from when I comment on some of this stuff:

 

Its sad that your old tree was cut down just because it's roots got in the way of some human dwelling which is probably a fraction of the age of the tree they destroyed...

 

I've seen that go both ways. If the house foundation was cut very close to an existing tree, it could easily cause the demise of the tree. But lots of trees are also planted (or allowed to grow even if they "just show up") too close to houses given the size they will eventually reach. Hell, even the house I'm living in was planted that way by its former owners. It's very sad for the tree, but can also be tremendously damaging to the house and very costly if the homeowner does nothing. The best thing homeowners can do for their trees is simply research them before planting so they can be sited appropriately... and with enough room to mature without causing trouble.

 

I won't cut down any of the trees on my land, unless they are dying or spreading disease to other trees. But our "born again Christian" neighbor greedily chopped down every tree worth money just two weeks after we moved in. He chopped down truckload after truckload... I'm told each tree was worth $2500. Then he had the audacity to claim he was just doing it to "improve the neighborhood and give us all more sunlight" - I didn't move here for sunlite! I moved here for the trees. The fucker said he was going to start a "christmas tree farm." Of course 3 years later he still hasn't planted any new trees and now his spoiled sons ride their dirt bikes all over the big dirt piles where the trees used to stand.

 

Ugh. Well, that's when I'd start planting large evergreen shrubs or trees near the property line so I don't have to see that...

 

The house/property I purchased had a gigantic basswood which split up in a storm shortly after I placed a bid on it. When I closed on the house two 30' limbs from this tree hung were hung up in adjacent trees about fifteen to thirty feet off the ground. It was a nightmare to remove those widowmakers and I'm glad the tree crew I hired to do it were expert climbers and ropesmen. I took much of the rest of that tree down because it was such a serious hazard. I did leave the stump (which is hollow) for habitat. A family of squirrels lives inside, probably with other critters, too.

 

The former owners of this house had planted a hundred foot row of Amur honeysuckles (an invasive species) and then allowed all kinds of other things (including invasive Norway maple) to grow up in various other areas. A lot of my work since buying the house has involved removing (or slowly hacking back) the invasive trees and shrubs and planting native or benign non-native plants instead. So there are reasons to cut down trees even if they aren't dying or diseased. If the tree itself acts as a disease within the natural ecosystem (and Norway maples and Amur honeysuckles do), I'm taking them down.

[Mysteries' Child]

I see no reason to believe you're nuts. My former Teacher talks to trees all the time. He's sane. So why shouldn't you be??

 

I've never had the experience...

 

...and I'm pretty sure it's because I just don't have the patience. I'm too much into short-order gratification.

 

Trees exist, so why should they not have some form of sentience??? It's silly to assume that only humans (only mammals, only animals, et cetera) are sentient. Just because we have yet to document it in falsifiable and reproducible laboratory experiments.

 

It makes me sick, too, the extent to which people treat trees like things-- or worse, like a commodity. But then, I cut seven common red cedar trees out of my yard this summer. They were crowding each other out; all of them were half-dead and getting fungus. They were also dense enough that the needles made the soil so acidic that nothing else-- literally nothing else, including veggies-- would grow. And the needles harbored so many ticks that I had an indoor infestation, and it was either cut down the trees nearest the house, or spray lots of insecticide, both indoors and out. It was the right thing to do-- the remaining trees look healthier already, no more tick infestation in my house, the trunks became a great big raised garden bed and everything else became enough mulch to last for years (talk about shopping local!!!).

 

I felt guilty anyway. I wonder where the overwintering birds will shelter in windstorms after this; last winter there were literally hundreds of them hiding right in my front yard. OK, I've stood on my porch in the winter; realistically, I know the answer is "In the trees at the other end of the yard, where, while there is no house to completely break the wind, they're even deeper in the lee of the mountain." But you get my drift. I do understand that there are valid, and sustainable, reasons to remove trees from a point of view of resource management. But I can't wrap my brain around someone who looks at a tree and sees "just a thing," or a profit.

[bubbleloulicious]

I actually did that...once. I don't recall what it was that I said, but when I was done I gave it a good solid pat or two (like I would a large dog) and said goodbye to it.

 

It was rather odd. Except for the pat thing. It was so...solid.

 

(I know that sounds dumb, but it's the only way I can describe it.)

 

 

It was definately a connecting thing. A firm acknowledgement of the tree's "being", I suppose.

[ghostchild]

There is definitely something special about trees. I don't know what, exactly. All i know is, they're beautiful, they take a long time to grow, and unless they're invasive they support the ecosystem in a crucial way.

 

Even that doesnt explain why i want to cry when i see them cut down, though. And i th ink it's funny how, other than the logging industry in general, the christians i have grown up with treated trees worse than anyone else i know.

 

seriously, why cut down a tree if it isn't causing serious problems? they're so beautiful and so irreplaceable, i don't understand felling just to get rid of trees or just to make a buck..

[Mysteries' Child]

"Dominion over" gets taken as "Do wtf ever you want." Not as stewardship. Not as, "Here, it's yours, now you're accountable."

 

There's a movement catching on among young Christians these days called "Creation care." It has a lot of the old guard up in arms, screaming about how their kids are being Paganized into worshipping the creation.

 

Assholes. Scared they'll be miserable without their profligacy. Fear is natural but the way a lot of people choose to deal with it is just sick.

 

Hard work to cope better with it-- look at me for example, work in progress, permanently-- but worth the effort.