woods, or under a special tree, or plant a tree in memory of that person is a ritual link to this large circle of life and also an actual link when ashes are spread or remains are buried: ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and dust to soil. The Earth prevails. What is left of our once-embodied selves, in turn and in time, will be incorporated into the planet. The fern forests and the trees gave us oxygen and nutrients to grow from a single cell into a human being, which we recapitulate in the uterus. Everything on Earth began with her, grew out of her, and will return to her. This is Mother Earth as womb and tomb, personified as the Great Mother of ancient and indigenous peoples: Our Mother who art the Earth.
2
GIVING LIKE A TREE
Inside our mother's uterus, each of us began as a fertilized ovum that grew into an embryo, then into a fetus, developing organs until they could be functional, gaining weight and size until, in approximately nine months of gestation, we were delivered into the world as a newborn baby. While inside our mother's body, we received oxygen and all the necessary nutrients to grow through the placenta that connected us to her physiology. In her body, she—our personal mother—produced the nourishment and eliminated the waste products of our metabolism, and maintained homeostasis, the steady environment in which her body's temperature, acid-base balance, and myriad other functions are kept within the range that sustains life. Mother Earth has been doing the same for us, and will continue to do so if we don't overwhelm her physiology with our numbers and toxic wastes.
As I learned about the evolution of trees and how Earth became a planet on which life was possible through the activity of trees, I realized that without trees, there would be no “Mother Earth.” Earth, air, water, and fire—these basic elements—come through trees. Without trees, Earth would not have a breathable atmosphere, soil for vegetation to grow, or water fit to drink. Sparks would not become fire without oxygen and combustible matter, which trees continue to make. All life has grown out of the body of the Earth; evolution became possible because what is needed is provided. Earth in its abundance gives to us like a tree.
It is spring and I am in New Mexico editing and adding to Like a Tree, as I revise the first draft into its final state. There is a 120-year-old apple tree in full bloom outside the window; its white blossoms delicately tinted with pink are gorgeous. I think of how trees also provide us with beauty, and that this one in particular, a Wolf River apple, will provide a harvest crop of crunchy red apples, as well. Food right off the tree for people and horses that can be further transformed to last for many, many more months when they are canned. Spring-light green is the color filling out the once bare-limbed trees near the creek, trees whose roots hold down the earth, each part of a watershed, conserving water in its banks to be gradually released later, and preventing soil runoff from the sudden, infrequent thunderstorms. On hills above the creek and lining dry arroyos that testify to the existence of flash floods are the evergreen juniper and pine trees that cover the rust-colored hillsides in this high-desert country. So much of the beauty around us is created by trees. Here the tree landscape doesn't resemble that of Northern California, where I live. These are not like the redwoods in Muir Woods. It makes me realize how every tree in its own way is different and beautiful, as well as contributes to where it lives. This is, of course, a tree person talking.
The Giving Tree
I thought about the Wolf River apple tree outside the window, one among others that still remain from an orchard planted long ago, that has provided apples, beauty, shade, and pleasure and, in turn, been appreciated and tended. It is such a contrast to another apple tree, also on my mind: the one in Shel Silverstein's children's classic, The Giving Tree. There are lessons and choices for us in contrasting these two.
The Giving Tree is an illustrated book about a boy and a huge apple tree. It begins: “A long time ago, there was a tree, and she loved a little boy.” He climbed the tree, ate her apples, took a nap in her shade. He loved the tree and the tree loved to play with him. As the boy grows older, he no longer comes to play. One day the boy returns to the tree and he looks sad. When the tree finds that the boy is sad because he wants money, the tree happily gives him all her apples to sell. Each time, the boy returns to the tree, he is older. The next time, he is a man and he wants a house. The tree tells him, “You can chop off my branches to build your house.” The boy takes the branches and leaves happily. The next time the boy returns, he is getting old and wants a boat to go sailing and relax. The tree says, “Use my trunk to build your boat.” So the boy does and leaves happily. Finally, after many more years go by, the boy, who is now an old man, comes back to the tree. The tree is sad because she is nothing more than a stump, and has nothing more to offer, but the boy says he doesn't need much anymore, just a place to rest. “Come boy, sit down and be happy,” said the tree, and he did and the tree was happy. The end.
The story of the Giving Tree and the boy is troublesome. The relationship it models is natural and healthy only when a child is very young. An infant's needs and wants are pretty much the same, and when her baby is content, his mother is happy. A toddler who wants what he wants when he wants it, and is always indulged, becomes a selfish boy with a sense of entitlement, and if the pattern continues into adulthood, he will remain the narcissistic boy with the expectation that his mother and mother-surrogates will be his Giving Tree. Or, as we are seeing, he—as a symbol of human narcissism—will treat the planet as the Giving Tree, with the End being the end of the beauty and abundance of Earth as we know it.
Earth Photographed from Outer Space
In 1968, the Apollo 8 astronauts took photographs of Earth from outer space. For the very first time, it was possible to see the Earth as separate from us. We saw the beautiful sphere that is Earth: there were swirls of white clouds and the deep blue of oceans, and here and there, under the clouds, some brown and green that are partial glimpses of the continents. We saw Our Mother, the Earth, for the first time and she was beautiful. Seen against the vast void of space, she also appeared vulnerable.
Until we become adults psychologically, we see our personal mother (and judge her) in terms of how well she did or didn't meet our needs and wants. Only when we become mature can we see our mother as separate from our expectations of her, and at that point in our lives, she is aging and more fragile than before. If we are not narcissistic, we can see her as she is, love her, and realize that it is now up to us to take care of whatever she cannot do for herself. This is where humanity is in relationship to Mother Earth.
Trees and our Earth take such good care of us and all they ask in return is that we do the same for them. This beautiful home we all live on wants to give to us forever. But if we don't take good care of it and if we continue cutting down all the trees, eventually it will have nothing left to give us.
—JULIA BUTTERFLY HILL
Global Warming and Tree Forests
Mother Earth is a giving tree that has brought forth life of all kinds, including humanity, Homo sapiens sapiens, a relative latecomer. Once established and dominant, humanity has treated the Earth like the little boy in the children's book. Beginning with the Industrial Revolution, and especially since the mid-twentieth century, human beings have treated the planet, especially trees, like an inexhaustible resource. Individuals and corporations look at trees and see only their monetary value. With current machinery and technology, trees that took from years to millennia to grow can be cut down in very little time, carted to mills, and made into lumber, or brought to factories to become pulp and turned into paper products. A tree is then merely raw material.
Deforestation
