Like a Tree. Jean Shinoda Bolen

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      The seed idea for this book began with the observation that there are “tree people,” and that I am one of them. A tree person has positive feelings for individual trees and an appreciation of trees as a species. A tree person may have been a child who kept treasures in a tree, or had a sanctuary in one, or climbed up to see the wider world, a child for whom trees were places of imaginative play and retreat. A tree person is someone who may have learned about trees in summer camp or through earning a scout badge or was a child who could lose track of time in nearby woods or the backyard. A tree person met up with Nature in childhood or as an adult, and like the four-footed ones who retreat to lick their wounds, may still heal emotional hurts by going to where the trees are. A tree person understands why a young woman might spend over two years in an old growth, ancient redwood, in order to protect it from being cut down. A tree person can become a tree activist at any age.

      A huge Monterey pine stood in front of the house that is now my home. I noticed it before I walked down the walk and across the entry deck to enter the house. It never occurred to me that by a vote of a homeowners association this beautiful tree that was here before any houses went up and was in its prime could be cut down because a neighbor wanted it down and could mobilize the necessary votes. In trying to save my tree, I was in many conversations and meetings, and found that there is a world of difference between tree people and “not-tree people.”

      I also found that there is a world of information to learn about trees, beginning with why this particular kind of tree thrives on a hillside ridge that often has a morning blanket of fog. Pine needles act as fog condensers that drip moisture down to the ground and, in effect, they water themselves. Tree people like me see the beauty of trees and may have photographed or painted them, but we may have a limited botanical knowledge of them. As I thought about writing this book, I remembered reading the classic novel Moby-Dick, and recalled how information about whales was interspersed throughout the narrative. I wanted to do something similar in this book, and in the process of learning about what a tree is and that they are the oldest living beings on Earth, I acquired a sense of wonder about them.

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