Photo and Story by your Rainbow Warrior Poet
and Scribe ever gaining a deeper understanding of Nature
A true story for my Family of Friends and our Family of Trees. Cheers!
I TALK TO THE TREES
I would like to share this very unique and revealing true story with you in the way that I recently conveyed it to a friend but with some minor literary improvements. I live in a beautiful forest and talk to the trees with whom I share my home inasmuch as they are my home. I used to bang a tin cup against the wide base of two cottonwood trees next to my goldfish pond after feeding the fish with contents therein and I just loved the hollow musical noise the cup made against these still beings. It became a rather enjoyable habit for well over a year or so. A friend had asked me once if I thought that trees could feel pain when chainsaws cut them down and I never knew how to answer that but thought about this on a recent morning while, again, knocking my cup against the two trees. In so doing I requested of both trees that, if my actions were causing them any pain, to show me a sign and I would stop doing it. Now remember this is a true and rather haunting story when one considers the mass annihilation and removal of our trees and forests today. Within a few days I remembered having asked my trees for a sign that I was hurting them and went outside to look at each one in case there was, in fact, a sign that I was being abusive. My heart must have skipped a beat or something when my eyes witnessed their response. I was suddenly overcome by shame and regret and can never dismiss what I saw. In the exact location where my cup made contact on either tree for my musical enjoyments there were now two bumps like we humans get on the back of our heads when we are struck rather severely by a solid instrument, whether by accident or otherwise. These bumps had actually protruded through the tree bark like the tip of an egg. I immediately apologized profusely for my actions and will certainly never hurt these souls again. The bumps are still quite visible through the bark on each tree but they get a lot of extra loving attention now instead of being subjected to my tin cup harmonies. What still haunts me about them and likely trees in general is that until I asked them for a sign that I was hurting them they did not show me that I was.
Claudio Oswald Niedworok