The Giving AND Living Tree

While we are living, we should truly live. We should strive to grow as tall and as strong as we can. We certainly shouldn’t cut ourselves down metaphorically in the way we think about ourselves or cut ourselves short in not taking advantage of opportunities when they come. At the same time, when we can give space for others and encourage them to thrive as mentors, teachers, and friends, then we are laying new roots for ourselves and for future generations.

Growing up in a somewhat arid part of the intermountain west means that certain natural phenomena were foreign concepts when I first moved to the wet side of the Cascades in Oregon. And so when I first to a hike with some of my Forest Service colleagues that first summer in town, I was absolutely blown away when I saw what are called nurse logs.

For any of you who, like me, might not have had the chance to see these amazing things up close and personal, nurse logs are fallen trees or tree stumps where young seedlings grow directly out of the old tree. And as I walked around these amazing sprouts growing directly out of the trunks of these massive old trees, it dawned on me what a perfect setup that is for the success of the next generation of trees.

Forests that have a lot of nurse logs tend to be wetter and denser than the forests I grew up hiking in. So often the canopy offers near complete shade to the ground below. Seedlings relying on sunlight like almost all trees and so without breaks in the canopy there is little chance of new growth. But having a mature tree fall leaves a gash of sunlight that can penetrate to the ground floor and nourish those young saplings that can grow directly inside the old footprint of the mature tree.

As the old tree starts to decompose, it attracts micro-organisms that break down the woody material and becomes excellent nutrients for the young trees and the new generation of seedlings don’t have to compete quite as fiercely with the mature tree that would otherwise be blocking out the sunlight or compete for water and nutrients. This is such a different model from the own we live with in our market economy where competition is king.

I don’t mean to make up the old “mother tree” into some kind of benevolent being that is making the choice to lay down its life literally to the ground so that the next generation can grow out of it. Some of these old giants live for hundreds of years and reach hundreds of feet high, and many generations of seedlings I’m sure are not able to grow in their shadow. But I think there’s a powerful lesson in the life cycle of these trees.

They grow as tall and as strong and are as prolific in sending out seeds and providing habitat for so much biodiversity. And when it’s time for them to die, they give space and nutrients so that the next generation can thrive after them. This concept teaches a subtle lesson. While we are living, we should truly live. We should strive to grow as tall and as strong as we can. We certainly shouldn’t cut ourselves down metaphorically in the way we think about ourselves or cut ourselves short in not taking advantage of opportunities when they come. At the same time, when we can give space for others and encourage them to thrive as mentors, teachers, and friends, then we are laying new roots for ourselves and for future generations.