When I find myself in a forest, I often stand in the presence of a tree and contemplate for long periods of time. I wonder what they have seen and what stories they would tell if they had a voice I could hear.
A tree stands well beyond a human life, yet is subject to change much like a human, due to external circumstances like forest fires, internal rotting or being cut down.
It would seem if you look to the reaching branches that touch the sky, they grow no further than where another tree begins—it’s a matter of respecting space you see. Something we humans are still learning.
However, in the presence of an elder human, one still cognizant of his or her own life, there are stories and wisdom coming from years of experience and reflection. An aging body housing great knowledge. A body more stationary from an inevitable slowing. A body and a mind forced to learn how to root itself in the earth’s calming energy…awaiting the next transformation into tree.
And it’s at the end of life, after all of this discovery that one may finally understand, we are all trees without roots.
-Andrea
