Aug 18 2008
White Pine and Hemlock
This morning I had the good fortune to pour out White Pine and Hemlock oils. I had one of those famous aromatherapy experiences where the scent brings you back in time, to people, places and events left in a safe spot somewhere in the web our minds and memories…
When I was kid, my father and I planted dozens of pine trees around our pond behind our house. The trees were an attempt to restore an area disrupted by bulldozers.
We planted primarily white pines and then a few precious hemlocks. This was my first tree planting experience. I loved the process, and the hope of a pond surrounded by pine trees. As time passed, year after year, the seedlings and I grew up together. I fell in love with the graceful beauty of the hemlocks and soft needles of the white pine. They gave me a place to reflect, to find shelter and comfort through trials and tribulations of becoming.
My father and I took some of the extra white pines to my grandparent’s house, where we got back to work planting more trees! A certain white pine by a tiny rock formed pool in their backyard became my favorite tree. My grandmother referred to it as “Cindy’s Treeâ€. Decades prior she had stuck willow twigs in the bog behind her home,
I referred to those now huge willows as “Grandma’s trees.†Whenever I visited my grandparents, I visited my tree. The last walk I took with my grandmother was over to that tree. It had grown to a massive height, we stood there for a few long precious moments, arm and arm, in harmony with each other and the tree. After she passed on, I planted a fresh white pine in her backyard, in a space left barren by the passing of her old willows.
Trees have always had a special place in my heart. Since that first experience around the pond, I have carried on the tradition of planting pine trees at each of my homes. I love the calm, quiet and steadiness of pine trees. Their endless patience with the wind, rain, snow and ice storms, their gracious gift of shade and scent, form, protection, privacy and pure natural majesty.
So there I was this morning, at “workâ€, pouring out the hemlock and white pine while I was transported through time and space to my past, to a visit with my grandmother, my father, and with my long time friend, the white pine.
So many trees and plants offer us such unique gifts, of presence, kindness and kinship through their aroma. It is my true pleasure and good fortune to spend so much time with them, in all of their glorious forms.
There stands in the back yard, down by the stream, an ancient pine. Taller than my house which is 80 years old, and older than that I am sure. Shortly after we moved in a friend came to visit and we speculated about the plantings, future flowers and secret gardens. She pointed to the pine and said, “If you cut it down you’ll have more yard. Besides it’s old. It might fall on the garage.” The pine has stood watch over that small back yard and the narrow little gathering of ‘forest’ vegetation on the banks of that stream for nearly a century. It has sheltered children at play, been a jungle gym for squirrels and tethered the back end of a clothes line for decades. It has a history rooted in the earth and yes, she lacks the grace of youth but so do I. The scent of her needles, the rough scratch of her trunk is so essential to that space that to deliberatly remove her would be tragic.
We are blessed by the good Mother Earth. We should could keep our foot prints small and accept her healing gifts with joy.