Environmental Stewardship Commission (MEESC)

Jeff and Janet gave us the Christmas gift of a compact disc of John Williams, "Amistad", which Williams composed for the motion picture soundtrack of the movie by the same name. John Williams writes powerful music and we could recognize his style in other music such as "The Mission", "Star Wars" and the fanfare for the Olympics some years ago. Because we enjoyed the disc so much when we saw an advertisement for another piece by John Williams we ordered it through an MPR catalog. The title is "Five Sacred Trees". When it arrived I immediately put it on and was surprise by a bassoon. "Where is the brass?" I asked. Maybe a wooden flute somewhere could accompany the brass in a Williams' piece, but a bassoon as the featured instrument, a concerto?

I didn't return to the music until sometime later when I was ruminating on trees. We took down three aspens that we thought were too close to the bunk house. They were there first, and of course I waited until I had built a bunkhouse before I took them down. It made for a higher stake job, and destroying the house is only one of the many things I feared while dropping the trees. For the sake of this article I did go out with a tape and measure them. They were a little over 75 feet high or long, depending upon your perspective. In spite of all my sweat, each of them were "a piece of cake", and looking at where they had been dropped one could be confused and actually think we knew what we were doing. I know many people would not call an aspen a beautiful tree. But they are. At least that's what I thought as I looked over them stretched out across the ground, and sadness shadowed itself into my sense of accomplishment. And it was helped by that beautiful sweet smell of fresh cut aspen. I suppose if we were to designate a sacred tree here it would be the white pine, and I would have to go along with that knowing that my ancestors followed it across Michigan into Wisconsin logging it on their way. I can't imagine a finer light soft green than that of white pine. But neither can I imagine a deeper gold than the fall aspen and I would have a hard time leaving it out of a list of sacred trees.

And so with the tree down and the deed done, I went back to John Williams and the notes that accompanied the CD. It said that among the ancient celts, "it was necessary to recite a specific prayer before felling a tree a ritual reminiscent of the lore of many other primal peoples, like Native Americans who recited prayers and wept before killing any creature." It was too late for that so I just continued to read about the celts and the place of trees in their culture. First I wanted to know who were the sacred trees in William's composition. And so I read on about the "sturdy oak" which began with the solo bassoon as a "deep throated voice that lends a somewhat solemn mood" to the piece. When I think of the Oak that grew around southeastern Minnesota, I think of grandeur. When I think of the oak growing here, I think of tenacity. Both show off by keeping their leaves through the winter just to demonstrate how tough they really are. The second tree was the "tortan" which was the tree of witchcraft. He featured the fiddle with the bassoon for that. I wondered why. The third tree was the "Tree of Ross" which "summons the rhapsodic powers of destruction and recreation". He featured the harp and the bassoon here. For me it would take much more than that, and I think maybe our tree of destruction and recreation could be the aspen. Does any other tree snap as easily in the high wind or grow more profusely in a clear cutting? I think this one needs brass and loads of percussion for its theme. It is time to let the bassoon back into her normal place in the orchestra. I hear French horns, trombones and, of course, trumpets. The third tree of Williams' selection was the ash. Here is a tree that knows strife and it brings an agitated theme with drum beats. I wanted to hear more of the ash. It was much too short for a tree whose grain runs deep and dark. The last tree he named was the "Dathi" and it was the muse of poets and the last tree to "fall in the legendary forest of Celtic mythology." I don't think there is any one tree here that inspires the poets. They all do. And I agree with Williams when he writes that "within the tree community there lies more music than anywhere else in the western world. It is impossible to stand under the high arching boughs of ancient trees and not wonder if the architecture of cathedrals was not born of just an experience."

Thinking of Cathedrals, and the coming of Good Friday I wondered about which tree the cross was made from. It was a wood of destruction and recreation. Could it have been aspen? Probably not, but the suggestion can help us see just how easily life can be taken down, and yet how vigorously it strains to reestablish itself. And perhaps when we see the slender aspen reaching for the sky and hear the wind shaking the leaves we can recall Christ and find love expressed in the beauty and the music of the forest.

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