Wild dendrophile

“There is nothing wrong with having a tree as a friend” ~ Bob Ross

When I was a child, I lived in a house where there was a patch of undeveloped land owned by a nearby mill. It was a forest to me then with towering pine trees, oak, maple, and elm that would sway in the wind. Beneath were stone ruins, once a home. Decades after the forest reclaimed the abandoned site, the traces of someone remained, for they planted daffodils, vining periwinkle, and lily of the valley.

In my childlike explorations – following deer tracks, the flitting robins, chattering squirrels, and imaginings of being on an adventure – there was a cluster of three pine trees, the tallest. Their weeping branches high above darkened the forest floor beneath it, creating a clearing of soft earth and pine needles. Cedar, rhododendron, dog wood, and other shrubs grew beneath them in the dapple sunlight.

Pine tree sisters or so I imagined. One in particular was my favorite. I would visit this tree every time I went in to the woods to stand underneath, study her bark, broken branches, and wonder what I would see if I could manage to climb her broken lower limbs. I never did climb. Sometimes I would make “potions” and pour them as offerings for her to drink. Sometimes I would pick flowers and leave them laid about. Other times, I would just go to this clearing when my small world seems overwhelming, or sad, or angry. When I wasn’t able to go to the woods, I would pick her out from my kitchen window and watch her sway with her sisters in the wind.

Twenty-five some odd years later and I still think about those woods and this pine tree. I see her so clearly in minds eye. I can now recognize that I found a sense of peace and calm in those woods. To this day, the forest is where I flee when life is becoming overwhelming with its modern problems and pressures. What I cannot explain is why I sought out this grand pine tree specifically or why I still think about her to this day. And why do I refer to this pine tree as “her?”

I think adults have a tendency to want to overcomplicate and over think a situation. I am no exception to this rule. However, when I ask my inner child what it was about this tree that brought me to her trunk for so many years, the answer is simple: love. I loved this tree and the spirit that resided in side her. Seems silly to type out, however, science has revealed that there may be something to the bond I created with this tree and my little forest patch, a theory called the Biophilia Effect.