Recently, I had a moment of reflection after listening to an episode on Atlas Obscura about an unusual yet fascinating topic: writing letters to trees. This unique theme opened up a host of unexplored thoughts and feelings for me.
In the episode, listeners were invited to call in and share their letters written to trees. One caller's message really struck a chord with me.
He talked about his fondness for a tree that, interestingly, wasn't native to its current location. He related this to his own experience as someone living in a place where he wasn’t originally from, which got me thinking about the broader implications of belonging and existence.
We often hear debates and conversations surrounding immigration and migrants—about their place in new communities and their right to stay. Yet, when it comes to nature, the narrative seems oddly different. We label non-native trees as 'invasive species,' drawing a line that separates them from their new environment, ostensibly protecting the local ecosystem. But this caller’s perspective turned the table on that notion, challenging us to think about whether these natural beings deserve the same consideration we demand for humans.
It raises an interesting question about the rights of trees and plants. Indeed, unlike humans, trees cannot decide to move from one place to another. They're carried by the wind, animals, or even humans, finding new places to root themselves without the concept of borders that humans have constructed. Nature, in its profound and unprejudiced wisdom, doesn't discriminate or categorize. It simply allows life to find a way, adapt, and flourish wherever it can.
This thought experiment blurs the lines we've drawn, not just in the soil of our gardens but in the ideology that governs our actions towards others—plant or person. As nature constantly demonstrates, adaptation and survival often lead to beautiful, unforeseen outcomes. Perhaps it's time we ponder our role, not as gatekeepers, but as humble observers and supporters of the natural world’s tenacity and resilience.
Who are we to dictate the course of nature’s wanderings? Like the trees carried to new places by forces beyond their control, many of us find ourselves far from where we began. And isn’t there something beautifully universal about that? The stories of trees, much like our own, are about finding a place to belong, no matter where that happens to be. This caller, in his poetic outreach to a tree, reminded me that in the tapestry of life, we're all threads woven from the same fabric, constantly being rearranged into a masterpiece dictated not by human borders, but by the natural world's boundless grace.