The Tree Beside Me

These trying times and my aging cause me to ponder my significance in the world. I know we all struggle with this. I’ve avoided this thinking because I’ve worked hard to claim my right to be on the planet. I don’t want to ignore my achievement.  Now approaching 63, I find myself teasing out an answer I can be at peace with. 

I have a loving heart, a caring soul, and a curious intellect. So, where do I fit?  I love nature, animals, and taking a dead end road to see where it goes. I do work that I love with passion and honest empathy.  I read.  I love.  I support what matters to me.  How do I evaluate my importance and contribution when humankind is making a mess of our planet?  What will the world know of my passing?

I’m not the first nor the last to contemplate this.  I strive to make my sphere of influence better.  I contribute to the greater good in the ways I can.  But, how do I measure myself against a natural world that is far greater with infinite complexity and a humbling penchant for doing what it does best—the rise and fall of all things great and small?  I must find peace in my place.

Am I the hunted or the hunter?  How do I square with the fact that I am both?  Up and down the line, all things from the amoeba to the grisly and the mosquito to the whale live in this reality.  None are greater nor more important than the very smallest.  Chutzpah doesn’t alter reality.  I will pass on like everything and everyone before me.  I’m okay with this.  I showed up.  I bloomed.  Others enjoyed my presence as have I.  Another will take my place.  We are as unique as snowflakes and just as transitory.

I love trees.  They are fastened to the ground in a way I am not.  They listen to the earth in a way I cannot.  Most trees have longer lives than I will.  A few with stunning longevity such as the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine have lived over 4,000 years.  Gastrotrichs, a marine microorganism, live just three days.  Compared to a Bristlecone Pine, I am a Gastrotrich.

I can’t be greater than all there is around me.  Nor do I want to think I am greater.  I watch the blooms of spring turn into the fallen leaves of autumn.  I am part of this earth.  To embrace the riches of nature, I must also admit my place.

The world is full of contradictions.  I understand the limits of my importance and influence.  A flower’s beauty and purpose is not diminished by its temporal existence.  Thus, I’m no more important to the history of the world than the tree I’m standing beside.  Humans would do well to remain mindful of this.  For what we do to trees is ultimately done to us.  This is not an excuse to do nothing.  It is a recognition and an easing of the struggle to know my place.  I will fight for what is right to my last breath.  I would do well to make as great a mark as a noble tree.

L’Chaim.

Joceile

10.8.20

[Picture of a 20 year old me standing next to a tree with Mt. Rainier in the background in Ft. Steilacoom, Washington in 1978.]