A Tree Knows How to Live

Communicating underground through its roots, a tree is in conversation with other trees. Under the earth’s surface, it holds counsel with the soil, insects, and water. It shares nutrients and transmits information about moisture and related matters to neighboring trees through a system of fungi. It’s a tremendous, invisible network of responsiveness. This news comes not from mythology, but arrives backed by scientific research and experts in the field who write and report about mycelium fungal organisms at work underground.

To be a tree, therefore, is to live in a vast community. To be a tree is to be patient, content, intrinsically generous and receptive, and willing to release a seed and not know where—or if—it might land, implant itself, and thrive. There’s freedom in being connected but not bound to oneself and others. There is liberation without sadness.

Every day, this Uyghur farmer takes his Chinese lettuce to market. A parade of trees line his path. I wonder if he knows how to live like a tree. Do any of us know? If I lived like a tree, I’d be sturdy, but bendable. I would be settled in receiving what is deserved and no more. There would be less striving and more trusting. I might choose to be a poplar, with my bark and leaves shimmering and glistening gloriously. Or, what about a handsome redwood, or a wondrous acacia that starts with a slender beginning and ushers out to become a canopy that provides shade for people and animals? There are more—I love palm trees—but mostly, I’d want to be a tree that knows how to live.