Heroes Not Zombies

Yesterday I went to visit this tree. These four photos give you some idea of what it looks like.

It was planted here in South West France to celebrate the birth of Francois Premier, King Francis the First, who was born in 1494.

That makes this tree over 500 years old.

Can you imagine being alive for 500 years? Being alive and thriving?

We humans have a real belief in our superiority in this world but look at this tree. It can capture the Sun’s energy directly and use it to convert the carbon dioxide and water in the air into sugars to nourish itself. It can breathe out oxygen, without which none of us could exist.

This tree has learned how to survive and thrive on this planet Earth in ways we humans can’t even dream of, not even with all our knowledge and technology.

I’m not saying we would be better off being trees. But I am saying there’s a lot we can learn from a tree like this.

Shouldn’t we be learning from Nature rather than trying to exploit and dominate her?

This fossil fuel based focus on grab and consume is fast reaching its outer limits. It’s time to change course isn’t it?

Time to learn how to adapt, how to survive and thrive in ways which enable us, and Nature as a whole, to live and grow. Learn how to live sustainably. Learn how to savour and relish our every day lives.

I don’t think we humans will ever live for hundreds of years. We’re not trees. But I can trace back my personal family tree back to the early seventeen hundreds in Scotland. That’s 300 years. Will that family tree survive another 300 years?

I know that stretches the traditional seven generations thinking a bit, but why not? The truth is my family tree….our family tree….the one you and I both belong to…goes back a lot further than the 18th century. So why not allow ourselves to dream, to imagine, and to conceive of another 300 years?

We’re going to have to change our attitudes and habits though aren’t we? We humans I mean. We’re going to have to give up on the fantasy of infinite consumption and perfect control of the world we live in.

But then this pandemic, and the rapidly increasing frequency of floods, fires and storms is telling us that, isn’t it?