The Majesty of Trees

by Suzi Foehl

For our June Advisory Leadership Circle meeting Francie invited us to join her, Meg and Rodney in the newly cleared tree rooms created on the grounds of the Retreat House. We could,with proper social distancing and masks join one another for lunch. If physical presence wasn’t possible we could Zoom in and watch the foliage shimmering in the gentle breeze framed the grateful faces. What a beautiful Spirit-led way to introduce a new shared sacred space—humans sheltered by trees.

One of many things I will take away from the months at home brought on by the pandemic is how sacred trees are in my life. It isn’t a new phenomenon but rather an affirmation that trees have been physically and spiritually protecting me my whole life.

A story I have shared countless times continues to resonate in my soul. As a young child I sat in my front yard under a massive American elm tree. I delighted in roasting Japanese Beetles on a child-fashioned spit, reading books to my dolls and seeking refuge from the heat reflecting off the asphalt driveway. I was in effect an only child born years after my siblings. By ten years old, my brothers were off to college and I still lived at home in a vivid and imaginary world. My tree was my playmate and friend. It is a story about wonder, love and loss.

One day when I returned from school my beloved tree was gone, struck many months before by Dutch elm disease and felled by well-meaning property owners, my parents. I was not prepared and was devastated by the loss. My parents could not understand my reaction. There was no perspective about the enormity of the blight racing across the US that consoled me. All I knew was my beloved tree—one that had offered an awkward, introverted little girl friendship was now a stump at my feet.  The majesty was no more, or so I thought.

The Dutch elm disease had swept across the nation “killing 77 million trees by 1970.”  Forty years after my heart broke, I move to a community on the Eastern Shore.  My new community, Chestertown, Maryland, met me with an open heart and a gift of grace. Several American Elms continued to grow untouched by the disease brought to the US in 1930. Mine is a resurrection story.

At the beginning of March when shelter in place was declared I selected The Overstory by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Richard Powers to read. It is 502 pages about trees. It is also about awareness, suffering, redemption and resurrection experienced by the many voices artfully woven into a common narrative. It taught me that I could research the ecological importance of trees for humans thoroughly, but it takes the inclusion of our spacious heart to absorb we are one. It takes personal experience to hold the majesty of trees in the midst of being derided for your faith in its truth. From The Overstory…

“The Greeks had a word, xenia—guest friendship—a command to take care of traveling strangers, to open your door to whoever is out there, because anyone passing by, far from home, might be God. Ovid tells the story of two immortals who came to Earth in disguise to cleanse the sickened world. No one would let them in but one old couple, Baucis and Philemon. And their reward for opening their door to strangers was to live on after death as trees—an oak and a linden—huge and gracious intertwined. What we care for, we will grow to resemble. And what we resemble will hold us, when we are us no longer…”

I plant my third fostered American elm this fall.