Читать книгу Like a Tree - Jean Shinoda Bolen - Страница 20

Inside our mother's uterus, each of us began as a fertilized ovum that grew into an embryo, then into a fetus, developing organs until they could be functional, gaining weight and size until, in approximately nine months of gestation, we were delivered into the world as a newborn baby. While inside our mother's body, we received oxygen and all the necessary nutrients to grow through the placenta that connected us to her physiology. In her body, she—our personal mother—produced the nourishment and eliminated the waste products of our metabolism, and maintained homeostasis, the steady environment in which her body's temperature, acid-base balance, and myriad other functions are kept within the range that sustains life. Mother Earth has been doing the same for us, and will continue to do so if we don't overwhelm her physiology with our numbers and toxic wastes.

As I learned about the evolution of trees and how Earth became a planet on which life was possible through the activity of trees, I realized that without trees, there would be no “Mother Earth.” Earth, air, water, and fire—these basic elements—come through trees. Without trees, Earth would not have a breathable atmosphere, soil for vegetation to grow, or water fit to drink. Sparks would not become fire without oxygen and combustible matter, which trees continue to make. All life has grown out of the body of the Earth; evolution became possible because what is needed is provided. Earth in its abundance gives to us like a tree.

It is spring and I am in New Mexico editing and adding to Like a Tree, as I revise the first draft into its final state. There is a 120-year-old apple tree in full bloom outside the window; its white blossoms delicately tinted with pink are gorgeous. I think of how trees also provide us with beauty, and that this one in particular, a Wolf River apple, will provide a harvest crop of crunchy red apples, as well. Food right off the tree for people and horses that can be further transformed to last for many, many more months when they are canned. Spring-light green is the color filling out the once bare-limbed trees near the creek, trees whose roots hold down the earth, each part of a watershed, conserving water in its banks to be gradually released later, and preventing soil runoff from the sudden, infrequent thunderstorms. On hills above the creek and lining dry arroyos that testify to the existence of flash floods are the evergreen juniper and pine trees that cover the rust-colored hillsides in this high-desert country. So much of the beauty around us is created by trees. Here the tree landscape doesn't resemble that of Northern California, where I live. These are not like the redwoods in Muir Woods. It makes me realize how every tree in its own way is different and beautiful, as well as contributes to where it lives. This is, of course, a tree person talking.