The Tree Party
AWE Season One Episode Ten
In the previous post in this series, I introduced the idea of the Standing People, a Native American name for trees. It is one I think fits and one I shall continue to use throughout this whole project.
Imagine you are at a work party. Perhaps it is Christmas, perhaps it is someone’s leaving do. Either way, there is a good turnout, everyone from the company appears to be there. You look around the room and see those who work in customer service, those who are the managers, the technicians, computer specialists, data entry, those who work in a warehouse, and all the other parts of the whole. This is your forest, these are your trees—and it is the same when you head out into the woods.
Some workers/species dominate a company/woodland. Perhaps where you are is not a large working environment, and nearly everyone is involved in customer facing roles? Perhaps your local woodland is the same—there is a predominance of birch (Betula sp.) or everywhere you look is mostly pine (Pinus sp.). Maybe you lived somewhere in the southern hemisphere and the species are mostly Eucalyptus, or even the ancient Araucaria?
Yet, even with those environment—work or woodland—there will be different roles and different trees.
That metaphorical party continues and the different groups begin to mingle more. This is the same with the forest—the species may be predominantly one type, but there will be others mixed in there, whether in the understory, or standing taller.
The Standing People are all at this party. They follow certain patterns and certain rules but, in a wilder space, there will be mixing and mingling, socialising of a standing still sort. Even in the most rigid of plantations, those mono-culture, darkened spaces common as once-upon-a-time tax-avoidance schemes in the north of Scotland, for example, there will be others. Perhaps the majority will be spruce, all in lines, organised neatly, yet there are those who help facilitate the wild. Those party planners, such as squirrels, mice, or birds, they will bring seed and nut, and they will encourage others to grow, an accident of sorts, yet the deliberate accident of ridiculous and remarkable evolution. Make a seed tasty and it will be buried for storage, and some forgotten. Nature is astonishing.
