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How to Listen to Trees
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Topics: Aging | inspiration | John P. Weiss | Life | Life lessons | Peace | Wisdom | Herman Hesse
Topics: Aging | inspiration | John P. Weiss | Life | Life lessons | Peace | Wisdom | Herman Hesse
My strength is trust
Photo by John P. Weiss
Near the end of her life, Mary loved to flip through a photography book of Ireland.
The book was large, and filled with stunning, colorful photos. From the rocky, vertiginous Cliffs of Moher and rolling, fertile fields and hillocks of the backcountry, to the bustling shops of Dublin's Grafton Street and divine sunsets above the iconic Blarney Castle and Gardens.
It was Mary's favorite book. A time capsule to the past, when she was a young Irish lass, and life was simple and people could settle into the rhythm of their lives.
I'd sometimes sit with Mary, my grandmother, and watch as she'd silently point at a photo here or there.
She was in her mid-nineties, mostly uncommunicative, her mind lost to wherever we go in the fog of dementia. The prominent veins in her hands hid beneath paper-thin skin. Skin that would often tear open with the slightest brush against a table edge.
Mary used to live in a little apartment in town, but when her decline started, my parents moved her in with us. My mother was her primary caretaker.
When I sat with her, I would gaze at her cloudy eyes.
What was she thinking? Where was she? And why were her favorite photos in the Ireland book always of trees? Sometimes she'd point to them, smile, and whisper sweet but indiscernible murmurings.
Mary never learned to drive a car.
When she lived in her apartment, she'd set out each day in her distinctive beanie cap and walk all over town. She pulled a little basket cart on wheels to put her groceries in.
Whenever we drove downtown, we'd often spot Mary sitting on a bench beneath the trees. Sometimes, I'd take her to the local park, and she loved to sit on benches near the trees. She'd watch the kids on the playground, softly twirl her thumbs, close her eyes, and listen to the breeze dancing through the tree leaves.
She closed her eyes. It was like she was listening to the trees. Like they were telling her something.
Trees comforted her.
The narrow years and the luxurious years
There are native oak, ash, hazel, birch, Scots pine, rowan, and willow trees in Ireland, along with other trees that were brought from elsewhere.
Mary seemed drawn to the outdoors, fresh air, and the comfort and shade of trees. Perhaps the oak trees in California where we lived called up memories of her childhood, playing around faerie circles, and climbing oak trees?
I once spied a Herman Hesse book in Mary's apartment.
I was young and unfamiliar with literature, but I remembered the name because I thought it sounded funny. Siddhartha would not be introduced to me until high school, but back then I lacked the focus and patience to read through such a book.
Had I been a deep reader in my youth, I might have read the translation of Herman Hesse's “Bäume: Betrachtungen und Gedichte” which is German for “Trees: Reflections and Poems.”
Consider the following, poetic paragraph from Hesse's observations about trees:
“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow."
I love that line about “The narrow years and the luxurious years.”
Because people are like trees. We have our narrow years, too, when the hard edges of life damage and bruise our faith and resolve.
But then we also have luxurious years, like when we are young, healthy, and the future is an endless sea of exciting possibilities and grand adventures.
Old age and infirmity confined Mary in her narrow years. Perhaps this is why she loved that photography book of Ireland.
She could sit by the window light, gaze at the photos, and escape to the past. Where the sky was blue and she was a child again in the verdant countryside of County Kerry, amongst the emerald green hills and gentle sheep.
Whenever I think about my grandmother, I remember not only her gentle countenance but also her unhurried manner. Whether baking her famous soda bread or strolling off to Sunday mass, she was always placid, leisurely, and happily self-contained.
How did she achieve this gentle, relaxed, angelic state?
I liked the Irish way better
Maybe part of Mary's secret came from her culture.
My family and I traveled to Ireland a few years ago. I wanted to finally experience the people and land that shaped everything about Mary.
I loved Ireland.
The people were welcoming, friendly, and unhurried in a way that's hard to describe. Yes, there were people in the cities heading to work, running businesses, and chasing the same livings we all have to chase.
But there was a quiet interiority about the Irish people.
I wonder if it's something in the Guinness stout, poured liberally in their wonderful pubs? Or the Irish air? If so, that brings us back to trees, whose photosynthesis provides the very air we breathe.
Mary always loved making her tea and sharing it with whoever would visit. It was more than a ritual, it was a manifestation of the quietude that lived in her soul.
“In Ireland, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting. Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting.
In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea.
I liked the Irish way better.”—C.E. Murphy, Urban Shaman
In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea.
I liked the Irish way better.”—C.E. Murphy, Urban Shaman
No doubt, the Irish way makes room for life's quieter moments.
Whenever I visited Mary in her apartment, she seemed to radiate an inner serenity. Homemade soda bread would be baked in the oven. In her sweet, Irish brogue she'd offer me a drink, invite me to sit down, and wait with her “for a spell” until the bread was ready.
After we sipped tea, nibbled soda bread, and chatted comfortably, I'd suggest a visit to the park.
“That would be grand, Johnny,” she'd say.
And then I'd wait while she got her coat, purse, and signature beanie cap. We'd drive over to the local park, and she'd hold my arm while we walked past the playground children to Mary's favorite park bench beside the trees.
Photo by Alex Blajan
The sun would warm us, and sooner or later, Mary would close her eyes to the sound of the trees swaying in the breeze. Sometimes I'd close my eyes too. Maybe that's when trees talk to us?
Because we're finally listening.
I trust that my labor is holy
I often climbed trees in the woods behind our family home.
I'd sit in the splayed branches at the top, comfortably cocooned in the canopy of leaves. I'd close my eyes, and feel the tree sway back and forth as the wind danced through the woods. It made me feel like a baby cradled in a mother's protective arms.
Even now, trees bring me comfort.
When I walk my dogs, we often stop in the park beneath the trees. We lie on the grass and watch the grackles and robins alight on branches and sing their songs, no doubt to the delight of their barked hosts.
“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.”—Herman Hesse
I remember gazing at a copse of trees within a faerie circle in Ireland. There were birds there, too, and the same feeling of peace and tranquility. Maybe the spirit of my grandmother was there?
“A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live."—Herman Hesse
Whenever I sit under a tree, I always follow Mary's example. I close my eyes. I focus on relaxing. Slowing down my thoughts.
And that's when it happens.
A sort of peace fills me. My mind is at rest, and yet ideas, solutions, and epiphanies land in my consciousness.
I think this is how we listen to trees, and allow their wisdom to enter our being.
Home is within you
Mary passed away in our family home one quiet afternoon.
My mother was helping her from the bathroom when Mary grew weak. Mom called for my father, and the two of them carried Mary to the bed in her guest room.
We all sat around her, and Dad held her hand.
Mary gazed out the window, at the towering oak trees with their squirrel friends performing acrobatic feats across the many branches and leaves.
Mary gazed at those oak trees for a while.
“When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.”—Herman Hesse
Mary was very still. I think she knew she would be traveling home soon. Maybe she was listening to the trees, and they reassured her.
Dad was still holding Mary's hand. He leaned in a little and whispered to her, “Are you okay, Mary?”
“I'm grand,” she said.
And then she was gone.
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