The Solstice Tree

Red Oak tree, Winter Solstice

During Christmas week trees are on my mind. Part of the general holiday centers on bringing a perfectly shorn  evergreen indoors to decorate, a tradition with both pagan and Christian roots that symbolizes everlasting life in dark times. The tree itself is a sacrifice and will be discarded.

Two days ago on the Winter Solstice I stopped in front of a particularly well-formed oak tree at Halibut Point. As a solitary specimen it had room and light to develop its crown into broad symmetry. I admired its grandeur and the details of its achievement made visible during its naked hibernation. In contrast to the Christmas message of man's salvation, this tree spoke to me of inherent harmony in all things.

Musculature, symmetry, armor

Of course wood has many properties that are useful to man. Those properties came into being as useful to the tree itself. Imagine being strong enough to hold upright such great mass and density, yet allowing sap to flow up and down within its structure, pliant enough to withstand and sway with windstorms, protectively encased but with the ability to expand in size annually. I know the challenge of trying to pick up and carry even a small chunk of this wood.

Lichen

The tree hosts all manner of cycles, events, and ecologies over the course of the year. Most prominent of these is the foliage that converts solar energy to growth. Buds and seeds come and go. Birds, insects, mammals, myriad organisms depend on it for sustenance, shelter or anchorage. 

Knot

The tree's method of dealing with injury is different from ours. It attempts to seal over stubs, wounds and cavities to keep out weather, pathogens, and other invasions. It's method involves encasing problematic tissue rather than healing it in the sense of restoration. So long as a dead or damaged branch protrudes from the trunk the bark cannot callous over that vulnerable point. Recovery becomes a race with time.

Standing before this tree on the winter solstice marks the beginning both of lengthening days and of astronomical winter, of more cold and more light, of  'the return of the sun.' The sun has reached its lowest point of noontime elevation and its longest arc on the horizon between rising and setting. Its low angle gives us thinnest warmth. Today, as its celestial  course reverses, it seems to stand still in the sky. This has been noted since ancient times, giving us solstice  from the Latin words sol “sun” and sistere, “to stand still.”