Out for an afternoon walk the other day, the trees were turning red. Bright orange and red tones kissing the tips of their green. Hayes ran ahead of me and he looked for acorns under the oak tree. He then said, “Mama, how do the trees know when to turn their leaves?” I said, they talk to each other and he looked at me looking for me to be joking and he said, “No, mama really!?” And I said, “It’s true, the trees talk to one another.” He went quiet and he said, “Mama, I cannot hear the trees talking. They don’t have mouths like us. They don’t have ears. How can they talk like us?”
I thought about this. The concept that even at a young age we believe that if things don’t do things like us, how could they possibly be worthy of that acknowledgment? I then thought and realized I needed him to understand that communication isn’t always the same and he needed to understand that nature has ways that are deeper and wiser than humans.
From there we sat under the tree and I talked about the roots and the pollen and their seeds. How they communicate in ways we are not able to see or hear or even understand. I told him the tree we sat under had been communicating and existing for decades before I was even born. He sat mesmerized and then the wind blew and the leaves rustled under the sunny skies. He said…”Mama, listen!!! Now I hear it. The trees have words they are just different than mine.”
It was eye-opening, grounding, and fascinating to sit in this moment of discovery of the natural world on this land we get to tend and care for so one day another generation will find its beauty and discover the conversation amongst the land itself. I told myself that I should plant trees and teach Hayes to do it as well, so when the generation passes by, we will replenish the trees that died. I found this wholesale nursery Melbourne that sells different kinds of trees, and they educate their clients on the proper way to grow trees. Nature is indeed therapeutic for those who experience depression and anxiety. Let’s take good care of our nature.
Remain listening to nature. She has a language deeper and more advanced than our own. I find every time I spend time listening I come back with a deeper wisdom.
