06 September 2024

Listening to the trees

Paul Butler discusses the connection humans have with trees and promotes “Listening to the Trees” by appreciating the emotional, cultural, and environmental significance of trees.

Everyone knows that trees produce timber. And a lot of people are now aware that trees also are vital to our ecosystems – increasing biodiversity, enhancing water quality and even improving animal welfare on farms that practice such as agroforestry.

And even though forests all over the world have been cleared for and by human activities, we humans are fundamentally forest creatures. Our distant ancestors were forest dwellers. And we have a deep connection to trees even though this is sometimes forgotten. Paul Butler, Liaison Officer with the Teagasc Forestry Development Department, delves further into these linkages.

“Listening to the Trees” is an initiative where we encourage exploration of this primordial connection to trees. It looks at how we feel about trees and what feelings trees and woodlands occasion within us. Often these innate, felt experiences are difficult to explain rationally but surface in stories and poems and songs.

This initiative is a small step in beginning to celebrate this connection with trees. Trees are important to us on many levels and it is important to understand the silvicultural characteristics, the revenue returns, the timber uses and the many environmental benefits. All of that. However, if we are ambitious about increasing forestry cover and gaining all of the benefits that trees can give our society, we also need to recover our sense of awe, gratitude, humility and joy in the presence of these amazing beings. This is key to trees regaining their rightful place as beneficial companions to us and be integrated into our farming and land use systems.

“Listening to the trees” is a way of remembering where we come from. There are poems, stories and folklore from all over the world that speak of trees as symbols, as inspiration, as a panacea to stress and trouble. “Listening to the trees” simply offers these writings to remind us all to look, to listen, to feel, to stop, to touch and to be touched – by the trees.

The poet Khalil Gibran famously wrote that “trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky”. Trees are some of the longest living organisms on the planet. They are also some of the tallest organisms. They offer a bridge between the earth and the sky, between the terrestrial and the celestial. They are rooted in the earth and yet are reaching for the light. If we really open ourselves to the majesty of trees they offer us a portal to the celestial, to a sense of wonder at the hugeness and the mystery of this planet.

The author Eckhart Tolle talks of seeking out a tree “and let it teach you stillness”. The poet Mary Oliver tells us that while walking among the trees she hears them remind her that life is to be taken slowly “it’s simple they say, and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy , to be filled with light and to shine”.

John O’Donoghue, Wendell Berry, Seamus Heaney, David Wagoner and many more have all found trees to be inspirational.

What do you notice when you go out in your woods? Have you a poem or story about trees that you would like to share with us?