The Wisdom of Plants

This week I sobbed as I watched trees in our backyard fall against the buzz of a chainsaw blade. Maybe this sounds melodramatic to you. Stick with me for a moment.

Y'all already know I'm going to reach for Robin Wall Kimmerer again, because I'm still not over the beauty and wisdom that is her book Braiding Sweetgrass.

She writes, "In some Native languages the term for plants translates to 'those who take care of us.'"

There exists between humans and plants a perfect symbiotic relationship. Take a deep breath in. You're breathing in the oxygen that plants put out into the world. Exhale all that air out. You're feeding the plants with your carbon dioxide.

So when I cried over those trees, it was for the strong branches that held the talons of scrub jays and the paws of our squirrels. It was for the shade it provided to the African Iris and little saplings planted along the fence line. It was for the dazzling dappled light that fell across our bed in the late afternoons, filtered through the leaves. It was for the ways those trees took care of me and the inhabitants of our garden.

Think about that place where you feel happy. Content. Fulfilled. What does that place look like? Maybe it is a place with lots of plants. Maybe not. Maybe it's within your own body. What if parts of it were destroyed?

Wherever it is, just as that place takes care of you, you take care of it, with your reverence, love, and invested time. Just as plants take care of us, nourishing our every breath, we take care of them.

I'll leave you with one of my favorites from Kimmerer:

"Sometimes I wish I could photosynthesize so that just by being, just by shimmering at the meadow's edge or floating lazily on a pond, I could be doing the work of the world while standing in the sun."

When I wept for our lost trees, I also wept for the trees still standing around me, who lost valuable members of their community. Learn more about how trees communicate with one another below: