The Tree Path
The Tree Path
Trees - all the year round
Trees draw us to them
Trees draw us to them. The Major Oak in Sherwood, was so visited in the 1970s, that it had to have a ring fence to keep people from trampling the soil and endangering its life. A planting as recently as the 1930s in Whipsnade, Hertfordshire, is now in demand for marriage blessings. It was created in response to the inspiration of the sunset catching a copse on the hill. Called the Tree Cathedral, it reminds us of the debt the great Gothic minsters like Southwell and Beverley (both of them full of green men), owe to the forest.
In Turkey, significant trees are ringed with red ribbon, in India you may come across a tree painted with vermillion or hung with cloths, in southern France there is a time of the year when bottles are hung from the boughs, in Somerset on Old Twelfth Night, apple trees are wassailed with shotguns and cider to ensure a good crop, in Japan sacred trees are hung with pure white paper shapes, in Buddhist ritual trees may be hung with beads or red ribbons. In Africa, many dances have their origin in offering thanks to the trees.
Trees have helped us to understand and explain our place in the world. They outgrow us and outlive us, they stay in one place reaching deep into the earth and up into the sky. Many cultures have used trees to describe the ordinary events, which remain inexplicablewhere did we come from, where are we going? The Tree of life with its roots in the underworld, its trunk in our world and its branches in the heavens, recurs in symbolic forms as diverse as the Native American totem pole and the Chinese pagoda.
