The writings of others have helped us to identify and to bring into focus the feelings that we have about trees, forests, and nature generally. This is a selection of some favourites.
Therefore am I still a lover of the meadows and the woods, and mountains;
and of all that we behold from this green earth; of all the mighty world of eye,
and ear, - both what they half create, and what perceive; well pleased to
recognize in nature and the language of the sense, the anchor of my purest
thoughts, the nurse, the guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul of all my
moral being.
William Wordsworth wrote this in 1798 (from Lines composed a few miles above
Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour). While
they are evocative words, they also seem prescient - as though he imagined more
than 200 years ago that we would need moral support to save what is left of
nature.
In J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, two members of the fellowship of the ring, Merry and Pippin, are captured by enemy forces. They escape into the ancient forest of Fangorn where they meet Treebeard the Ent. They emerge from the forest bigger and stronger than when they entered and the forest has been energised by their visit. This is a powerful allegory of the type of relationship that humans and trees can have.
Why was it, he wondered, that the great oak had this power to revive
him? What was its magic? Was it just the huge, gnarled strength of
the tree? The fact that it remained there, a living thing yet unchanging,
like an ancient rock? Both these things, he thought; and the falling
acorns, and the rustling leaves. There was, however, something else -
something he had often felt when he stood by the trunk of some full-grown
spreading oak. It was almost as if the tree were enclosing him within an
invisible sphere of strength and power. It was a strange feeling, yet
palpable. He was sure of it, even if he could not say why.
from "The Forest" by Edward Rutherfurd