See the trees

A few weeks ago, during a solitary and leisurely walk through Kern Park, I took some photographs of my favorite trees.  It was a gloomy day, but the trees stood strong and beautiful with their solid trunks and bare arms.  These amateur photos don't truly capture their essence, but I hope you get an idea of their magnificence.  I think of these particular trees as old friends, and I enjoy greeting them as they change throughout the seasons.  I often remember the time - several years ago - when my children and I had been hiking along the Milwaukee River and in Kern Park, and a friendly woman stopped to offer us a short lesson in natural history.  She told us that these large trees with the “camouflage” bark are sycamores or plane trees.

All those years ago, I really appreciated the kindly walker who stopped to converse with us at the park. We should take every opportunity to open children’s eyes to the natural world around us, so they appreciate it now and grow into adults who will help preserve it.  Because of children's natural curiosity and enthusiasm for living things, it's fairly easy to get them interested.  More often than not, they are the ones to point things out to us or to see things in new ways.  In some journal notes from that nature walk, I wrote that we were particularly excited that day because we had observed some spectacular woodpeckers up close and had found a frog.  I quote my then ten year old son as saying:  “I can’t believe how much wildlife there is in these Wisconsin forests!”  I noted his sincere enthusiasm for the nature in our own city neighborhood and the importance of appreciating and preserving the natural spaces in our backyards, not just those we visit on vacations or see in nature documentaries.    

The thing about adults is that sometimes we are too preoccupied or in too much of a hurry to really see things.  My reflections on these trees, and my remembrances of nature walks with my children, both connect to some reading and research I have been doing about artist Corita Kent.  In the book Learning by Heart:  Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit by Kent and Jan Steward, she writes about observation, seeing things and looking at them in new ways.  She says:

"If you have a child or two or three, or can borrow one, let her give you beginning lessons in looking." 

Children may see things with a sense of curiosity, attention and appreciation that we adults have lost.  There is an assignment in the same book in which Kent talks about looking at trees:

"Look at a tree and its shape.  Look at the part the leaves play in making the shape you see and look at the part the trunk and branches play in making the structure you see."

She also writes:

"When you get past making labels for things, it is possible to combine and transform elements into new things.  Look at things until their import, identity, name, use, and description have dissolved."

While looking at trees or their parts, while viewing them from different angles, while really seeing them - they can inspire us, and they can even transform in our minds into new ideas and new things.  These are the intersections that are occurring in my own mind, among the things I'm thinking about and reading and doing.  I love the synchronicity, the connections.  

My favorite trees remind me of so much that is important.

*****

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