How To Talk To Trees

an empathy-building skill

The young woods behind our house in snow

I did not always know how to talk with trees.

When I was a girl, we were intimately acquainted by touch. The hills where I grew up were forested and filled with the voices of deciduous trees, some coniferous—the oaks and pines, walnut, poplars, maples, elm, sycamore, hickory, hemlocks… I never knew their names. The trees would hold me in their rough branches, cradle my soft-flesh-body and sometimes scrape my fragile, translucent skin. I did not mind. It was a small token, this gift of blood, in exchange for shelter—to be hidden away from the world, a blanket of leaf canopy and the sky a whisper above. I would lean my head against a knotty shoulder and listen to the voices of the trees lift with the wind, a harmony that quieted my bruised heart and sang a softly humming joy into my being—knitting bark and bole and leaf and branch into the deepest part of my growing self.

To listen to this post (and a red-bellied woodpecker outside my window):

But I never knew how to talk to the trees. To thank them for their kindness, for the gift of rest and oxygen and hiddenness. Their language, so ancient—so lofty yet so humble, the natural tongue—a part of the fabric of all that is, woven into the elements that make up all of creation. I did not have a voice to speak their song of rain and sugar and sun and humus.

There was so much battling in my young heart, a struggle, a fight to know myself and love myself, this shadow-child—third born of four, later five, second daughter with nothing special to bring in birth, the invisible one, another mouth to feed—this person made of the very dust that feeds the trees and hugs their roots, giving support to their upright reaching toward the sun.

We have always been a part of each other.

I am a tree-hugger

I have always heard the voices of the trees and they sound like love. And now, science is catching up, telling us how the trees do talk to each other—a complicated, intelligent, social network that involves all the forest. But science cannot tell us how to talk back, how to converse with these gentle creatures who give in abundance and by design.

“The works of God are … a kind of voice or language of God to instruct intelligent beings in things pertaining to Himself.”

I read this beautiful quote in a book by Belden Lane . I’ve shared it before, it so captures my heart. He is quoting Jonathan Edwards, but he has more to say about the way nature speaks the language of the Divine.

In his heady book Ravished by Beauty, Lane makes a strong case for the inclusion of trees in the Communio Sanctorum, the “communion of the faithful.”

“The cosmic Christ of Colossians 1:15 summons all creation to a deeper unity. With leaves in his hair and seedlings in hand, he gathers great blue whales and whooping cranes, passenger pigeons and maidenhair ferns to join with human beings in a common song of praise to God. If Deuteronomy expresses concern that fruit trees not be harmed in the siege of a city (20:19), if the Psalmist speaks repeatedly of a tree ‘planted in the very house of the Lord (Ps. 52:10; 92:14), if we’re told that a tree grows in the heart of the New Jerusalem, its leaves meant for the healing of nations (Rev. 22:2), then why not recognize trees as participating in the company of the saints?”

This morning, through my window, I watched light arrive and touch the branches of my maple. She was warmed, lit from tip to bole. I think about her language, how she speaks as we do—as Lane says, “through a process of wind passing over cords or membranes like leaves.” I listen for her song and something in my spirit is at home. The trees have long been our friends—oxygen makers, shade-givers, root teachers ... ah, these with the limbs always reaching for God. Beauty learns from her simple grace.

I cannot resist the pull when I look at her this way—I must go out and stand beneath her, a child-bride, in braids and a white dress—born into this world dancing. Standing still in this way, I can almost feel the earth move under my feet; the very cells of my body tuned to the song of the cosmos. I can feel the memory of yesterday’s rains surge through her trunk, feeding her roots and leaves, waiting to nourish during the dry days.

I did not always know how to talk with trees. It has taken me many years to find my voice. Now I know, that to love the trees well and share in conversation with them, I must first love myself. I must first love the “other.” But loving the trees helps me do this too. Loving the trees helps me embrace and celebrate my smallness, in recognition that I come from the same earth as they.

How I talk to trees:

I approach the tree with respect and deference. I know that even a very young tree is born of an elder, part of a system likely born long before I was even a thought.

I begin with gratitude, a touch, holding in mind the many gifts the tree has brought into this world, into my world (beauty, oxygen, shade, fruit, shelter for the creatures of the earth, and so on).

I never forget, no matter my faith tradition, the tree has knowledge of the Divine that I may never know.

I do not pray to the tree, or worship the tree, rather, I offer my love and as much care as I can provide.

And then, I simply speak. Maybe in soft tones so as not to concern the neighbors. (Trees are fabulous secret-keepers, BTW. If this sounds interesting to you, you may enjoy

Julie Gabrielli

’s story Heartwood.)

Maybe you have a different way to talk to trees? Find your heart and your voice and give it a try. I have found it adds some empathy to the world—something sorely lacking these days.