The Peace of Trees

Byrd Baylor wrote a children’s book years ago called The Other Way to Listen.  The boy in the story is amazed by an old man who can hear corn growing, and stars singing.

“Teach me how,” the boy implores.

The old man says (more or less), “Just sit still with the corn, or a tree, or a horned toad, or anything. Don’t think that you’re better, don’t be in a hurry. Just sit, watch, and listen.  How long?  A few minutes, a few hours, a few days if need be.”

I don’t have days.  I rarely have hours, but I do like sitting with trees.  A long moment will do.  An instant comfort comes over me.  Like dogs, the trees accept me completely without judgment.  Unlike dogs, they don’t fidget and bite fleas.  Trees are underrated companions.

It’s said that a proof of two individuals being comfortable together is they can share silence happily.  With a tree, this is a piece of cake.  I settle in, relax, drop into a kind of “here-ness” I enjoy with few human friends.

As I keep the company of the tree for a stretch of time, and look carefully, I begin to see more than I saw at first, and then more still. When I think I’ve taken in all the detail, something else emerges to surprise me. The subtle curves and undulations of the trunk for instance. Every tree is a river, flowing upward along its course. Even straight trees have gentle twists and nearly imperceptible inclinations that, once seen, reveal a sinuous expressive current.

If I have a while and can sit still enough to feel my way into perception of the tree, something of its presence begins to filter into me, slowly, subtly, like a particular flavor, or a unique melody. Sometimes these “melodies” are surprising, moving.

You might imagine this a boring passtime.  Hardly.  Coming into the presence of a tree you’ll discover a rare peace that deepens, a quiet well-being.  And in that peace, there’s discovery and revelation.  Confusions start coming clear.  Sadnesses relax.  Anything but boring.

At the end of the book, the boy learns to hear the stars and the music of the world.  Maybe one day.