Acknowledgement – This piece refers to a Khalil Gibran poem “On Children.” I only know of this poem by reading the Substack Notes from a Naturalized American. Nandini’s work compels me. I am only comfortable re-citing this poem by offering this acknowledgement. Thank you.
When I was a teenager in the 70’s, I was taught to care for fruit trees by an old man, Otto. Ot, as we called him, was a confirmed bachelor who had lived his entire life in a rickety, civil-war-era, shack-cum-house. He subsisted on the products of his small farm, which my family purchased. He arranged to live out his life in a trailer placed in our orchard and to tend the trees. As he aged, I helped as needed.
There were fourteen apple trees, two apricot trees, and a pear tree, all of indeterminant age. Two new peach trees and a cherry tree had just begun to bear fruit. In the fall, after the trees were dormant, Ot taught me to remove the deadwood and such branches as would shape the tree, providing room for healthy growth of the budding limbs. In the spring, before the buds swelled, we would trim the suckers and twigs that were either un-budded or overly budded. In the summer, on still mornings about once a month, we would spray the trees with insecticide. He taught me how to pick an apple without damaging the twig that supported it. Every few years we would spread iron shavings around their trunks, believing the enriched soil would produce more robust fruit. I have no idea whether these methods are scientifically valid. Ot was entirely self-trained. But the fruit we produced was delicious and sought by anyone who knew of it.
As we worked, Ot would mumble comments at each tree, as if recognizing its individual personality. Once, one of the trees was mortally damaged in a windstorm. Its first major branch broke off and tore part of the trunk with it. Ot was somber as we removed the tree. I sensed that his sorrow was deeper than just the loss of its produce. I now believe that somehow, Ot’s soul was connected to those trees. Ot loved the trees with a commitment normally reserved for family, which he didn’t have.
In the present time, since moving to our current home, my wife and I have ornamented our yard with firs, pines, and hemlock trees backstopping the colors of service berries, Japanese maples, redbuds, and golden glory bushes. Now more than ten years old, they’re mature and beautiful. They complement four massive oak trees that tower over them.
Several years ago, we put another structure on our property and moved one of the redbuds some distance from its cluster. Immediately, a brief drought stressed the tree. We feared for its survival. We have dutifully nursed it since. Every spring we anxiously await its new buds to prove our success. Now, after five years, it is apparently recovering.
During this time, I have become something of a laughingstock. In addition to regular watering, I talk to the tree. I think warm thoughts about it. I asked my family and neighbors to as well. The tree was probably lonely, I insisted. It had been moved from its friends and family, and probably didn’t know where they were. Maybe it was sad and needed encouragement. (My daughter claims I have some hippie in me. She’s probably right.) As it turns out, the more we learn about trees, the more sense this makes. Trees communicate! Just google it.
Dr. Kathryn Flinn of Baldwin Wallace University warns that The Idea That Trees Talk to Cooperate Is Misleading | Scientific American. Her article explains that even though they communicate, trees still occupy a brutally competitive eco-system. But the title confuses me. Do academics really find this warning necessary? We may be misled into believing, um,… into thinking that maybe,… urhh. Actually, I can’t find the harm in attributing consciousness to Living things, capital “L” explained below, just because we don’t yet understand it. I like her conclusion, though. “We need to meet the challenge of cultivating respect for organisms that are different from us—in their separate and complex bodies, in their sophisticated interactions, in their unfathomable lives.”
In his 1923 poem “On Children”, Kahlil Gibran includes the line “… Life’s longing for itself.” Life with the capital “L.” The poem illustrates that while we have agency in our life, small “l,” we are also a device for Life, capital “L.” Gibran’s words summarize the infinite complexity of competition and symbiosis between species, and the stubborn mechanisms Life uses to perpetuate itself. A life may be fragile, short, and scientifically random; but Life is durable, long, and divine. To me, the mysticism implied is just as important as the science that will explain more of it with each discovery.
Gibran wrote his poem well after Darwin’s “The Origin of Species”, and well before the double-helix and genetic coding of DNA was understood. Frances Collins of Human Genome Project fame has described DNA as “the language of God.” 92% of our DNA is labelled “junk.” (We don’t know what it does, but if given the choice, I prefer to keep mine.) Supposedly, we share 84% of our DNA with dogs, whom we raise to love, and 98% with pigs, whom we raise to eat. There are activists who object to both uses of our DNA cousins. But we also share 50% of our DNA with trees.
I agree with Dr. Flinn’s call to respect organisms different from us. My rural upbringing provided a pragmatic respect for all the plants and animals we raised. Especially those that ultimately became food. So, I wonder about the differing ethical standards we apply to consuming animals compared to plants. Aren’t all living things part of Life? Planting a fruit tree initiates a life. Husbanding the tree to more nutritious fruit exploits its offspring. Removing an unproductive tree ends a life. The sole purpose of that life was to feed humans. What makes that life less important than the life of a cow? What makes a garden more agreeable than a fish farm?
One spring morning when I was 15, Ot called for my help at daybreak. It was before school, but I was proficient by then, and we quickly finished. While cleaning the tools, Ot leaned against his garden tractor and asked me to rub his back. He had unusual pain in his shoulders, and he grumbled about getting older. I think he was in his late 60’s. I complied, but I felt odd. I had never touched him before. The backrub seemed weirdly intimate. Besides, I was anxious to get home and have some breakfast.
Ot passed away the following week of a heart attack. I tended the orchard until I left for college. It’s productivity declined. Thereafter, the orchard went to seed.
I think the idea that we share spiritual space with trees should not be ruled out. I never questioned if Ot loved the orchard. He did. My question since has been, did the orchard love Ot? The older I get, the more I think so.
I have a bit of that hippie too about plants. After reading “The HiddenLife of Trees” by Woellner, I can never think of trees as simple again.
“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the wind longs to play with your hair” Khalil Gibran
I’d like to be of this creation instead of attempting to rule it.
Braiding Sweet Grass by Robin Wall Kimmerer has much to say on the topic.