STOP…… AND HUG A TREE

The next time you walk past an old tree, stop for just a moment.

Run your hand across its rough bark. Lean against it. Wrap your arms around it and hold on tightly.

It may sound a little foolish, but science says it isn’t.

Researchers have found that spending time with trees can lower our blood pressure, reduce stress, strengthen our immune system, quiet anxious thoughts, and even lift our mood.

Simply standing among them, breathing their fragrance, and touching their bark has a remarkable way of calming both body and soul.

Trees ask nothing of us. They simply stand. Through scorching summers, bitter winters, fierce winds, and pounding rains, they remain faithful. Year after year, they offer shade on the hottest days, shelter for birds and wildlife, and the oxygen every one of us depends upon without giving it a second thought.

And yet, everywhere the eye can see, there is another fenceline torn out, more beautiful trees torn from the ground. Another beautiful canopy of towering maples or oaks just torn by their roots, and pushed into a brush pile and burned. There are many trees taken from storms to cut up for firewood, but to take out fencelines and trees that have lined the roadway just because you want to should be illegal. It changes the entire ecosystem. NOT to mention, people who tear out fencelines and small forests seem unaffected by the destruction elsewhere, but strategically plant trees all around their property lines and homes. EVERYONE DESERVES TO KEEP THEIR BORDERS, THEIR BOUNDARIES, THEIR WIND BREAKS, AND THE WILDLIFE DESERVE TO DWELL IN PEACE

In Germany, you are not allowed to take down a tree without permission from the local authorities. The tree has to be very old, leaning heavily, or have the potential of falling on a building. Otherwise, you are instructed to trim it up and LIVE WITH IT, not against it. Oh, that American could be that smart.

In Michigan last year, 100,000 acres of agricultural ground was taken up for homes, factors, data centers, solar and wind farms.  America is going to lose the ability one day to feed the masses of people, who might believe that Walmart and  Meijer have a garden on their roofs the size of China. Ground is sacred. Trees are sacred. They break the wind, shelter wildlife, protect our soil, and quietly remind us that NOT EVERYTHING VALUABLE CAN BE MEASURED IN DOLLARS.

A tree is far more than wood.

It is clean air.

It is cool shade on a July afternoon.

It is a nesting place for birds, a home for squirrels, a windbreak for cattle, and a silent witness to generations that came before us, and the ones that will come long after we are gone.

Perhaps we’ve become so busy building “bigger, better, brighter” futures that we’ve forgotten to protect what has quietly protected us for thousands of years.

Before you reach for the chainsaw, reach for the pruning shears first if you can. If the tree is standing and alive, save it; work around it. Leave the oxygen and shade. We need to care for the trees and protect them.

Go out and plant a tree…. TODAY…. PLANT TWO.

Someday, someone you will never meet will stand beneath its branches, take a deep breath, lean against its trunk… and find exactly the peace, the oxygen and the cooling shade they needed.

Notice the similarities between a tree’s biological design and that of a human. It’s remarkable to study.  I am PROUD that I come from a long line of ” tree-hugging, respect the land, and leave it better than when you found it” kind of people.

We are only the custodians of the land, like those before us and those who come after us.

       

    Look at our hand against a tree’s veiny branches, our heart and the tree’s main

Arteries that feed it; look at our fingers strong and stable,  like the roots of a tree.