Tag Archives: oak tree

What if Nature, the woods and trees miss us as much as we miss them?

What If The Trees Miss Us? Haiku

What if the trees deep/
in the woods miss us as much/
as we’re missing them?

Back Story:
The other day I was walking through the woods at Spirit Tree Farms, and I felt like I should spend some time at the base of The Old Woman of the Woods, “our” pre-Civil War giant oak tree. As I was feeling her bark, connecting with her, I felt a deep melancholy, a sense of longing, a sense of missing her. I wondered why I’d stayed away from connecting with her, and Nature, and God’s creations, for so long.

Suddenly, I was away that the feeling was mutual. It was almost as if she whispered “Hello, Boy. Welcome back. I’ve missed you. I’ve been lonely for you.”

I’d never thought of that concept before, that maybe the trees miss us! That thought inspired this haiku.

Reset In The Forest, Back To Your Roots: IMprov Prose

On our property, the Old Woman of the Woods is the Matriarch. A mighty oak tree, she was in her late teens when the Civil War’s Battle of Chickamauga raged less than a mile away. She often imparts wisdom, especially as I’m working in the undergrowth, clearing out things that don’t belong near her. This is a message I got recently as I was pulling up invasive Chinese Privet from around her roots and base.
Up the trunk into the branches of the Old Woman of the Woods oak tree
Any time there is a shock to your system, any time something changes radically, you go back to your roots. You go back to you, for you. Withdraw. Reset at your base.

Some of the ancillary branches, things in your life that aren’t at your core, at your roots, may whither, shed, drop off and die.

That is okay. Once you get back to your core, back to your roots, you will reset. Your upper part, the upper branches, will come back fuller, stronger, and more in line with what you should be, what you are at your core.

—Message from the Old Woman as I cleared around her base.