Shade, Shelter, Sustenance & Serenity!!!

It’s late Summer. September is around the corner. And I’ve been thinking, as I often do, about trees.

A few months ago my son and I decided to adopt a dog, a wonderful Border Collie/Kelpie mix called Rolo. So I’ve spent even more time walking in my local nature, in all weathers! And time and again trees have gracefully offered me their shade, their shelter, and their serenity - and soon their sustenance - as the apples begin to ripen in our local park’s orchard.  

Trees are truly our friends! They draw down carbon from the atmosphere, clean the air from pollution, protect against floods, landslides and desertification, and release Natural Organic Volatile Compounds (NVOCs) that reduce our stress response, improve our immunity our sleep and our moods, and regulate our blood pressure.

Trees provide us, and multiple other species, with so much of what we need to live - food, shelter, fuel, and medicine.  WOW!!!

So yes, we simply cannot survive without trees.

Yet, when we walk amongst them, the power of their presence to help us feel, is what we are most likely to remember.

When we are truly present with the magnificence of a tree, we are humbled by its solidity, its longevity and its resilience. We trace our fingers over its gnarled bark and wonder at the story of its life. When we lean our back against the hardness of its trunk, we are grounded by its stability. We turn our heads up to the canopy when everything seems still, and are soothed by the gentleness of an almost imperceptible sway. And when the wind rolls through the overstory we are transfixed by its symphony.

And there have been many times in my life when a tree has comforted me, offered its friendship in times of loneliness, and been my place of safety.

So, I hope you get an opportunity to connect with a tree, and come back to yourself, really soon.