“Earth may be alive: not as the ancients saw her — a sentient Goddess with a purpose and foresight— but alive like a tree. A tree that quietly exists, never moving except to sway in the wind, yet endlessly conversing with the sunlight and the soil.” — James Lovelock
A native Englemann (Picea englemannii) keeps company with three blue spruce (Picea pungens) in a small front yard facing a quiet street. This small tree community towers over a 100-year-old brick farm house. Their crowns hover 100 feet above needle-laden soil.
Another wild native, the deciduous narrowleaf cottonwood (Populus angustifolia) thrives in a side yard held firm by her ancient roots. Because she is very old, some roots are exposed above ground in a network of sprawling life. Like her pin tree neighbors, the cottonwood has likely formed a partnership with a network of underground fungi. This will ease her connection with other trees, fungal partners and roots in a vital exchange of nutrients and information.
Living legends, trees are 400 million years old. They convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, build sustainable networks of communication and nutrients with other tree and are known scientifically to notify fellow trees in coordinated responses to threats. In spite of human-caused global warming, indiscriminate logging and deforestation, trees are determined to grow. They are masters of adaptation and survival. Their wind-born seeds, cones and pods are evidence of this phenomenon.
During the past month of random winds, the ancient conifers produced clouds of yellow pine pollen. Allergies were the talk of the town. “The worst ever” was the common claim.
With swollen eyes and clogged nasal passages we sneezed our way through layers of infiltrating dust. Sticky sap and a gazillion loose pine needles added to our complaints. Volumes of catkin flowers transformed into fluffy white cotton and blew into the air from the brittle branches of the cottonwood, a true seed dispersing poplar.
More itching and grumbling followed.
On days like today, when summer’s heat and hot winds rustle tree canopies, I recall my nextdoor neighbor’s kinship, like mine, with these same trees. When July arrives after seasons of forgettable allergies, like other shade-seeking mammals, we welcome the generosity of a shade-filled refuge.
Mildred Davis, aka Gig, was born Mildred Clare Henley in Park City near the turn of the last century. She was a miner’s daughter. Early on, Gig migrated from Park to Midway to marry Rex Davis, the handsome young man born in the farmhouse where I currently reside. When I moved from Old Town Park City to my home in Midway that once belonged to her in-laws, Gig and I became fast and lasting friends.
It was a blistering summer afternoon years ago when I stepped off my front porch and recognized a pair of elderly women stretched out on the cool, bare grass. Gig and her best friend Alta appeared as two young school girls. Here they were, lying under the generous shade of dark pines and engaged in friendly gossip while connected to nature. The relaxed scene was reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell painting, “The Philosopher.”
As I approached, Gig raised up to greet me. Then she paused and looked up at the wavering boughs high overhead. She began fondly, “I remember when Ma Davis brought those trees home in a suitcase from Cedar City.” The three of us marveled in silent reverence at the trees’ impressive size.
A symbiotic relationship with trees ha been ever present throughout human history. Are we choosing our proximity to trees or are we chosen? Gig and these sturdy trees chose to grow together over 70 years.
“The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Trees’ interwoven connectivity is a proven system for growth and survival, a quality inherent to the natural world. In any season, the miraculous lives of trees and our relationship with them should remind us how near we are to their poetic, sacred wisdom.
Leslie Miller is the co-editor of “Reimagining A Place for the Wild” and a former, long-time resident of Park City who now lives in Midway.