My tree population has become a world unto itself, massive growth this year, uplifting (in all senses) avian biodiversity from the relative paucity of two-dimensional flatland of the original hayfields into the third dimension of biomass infrastructure – that fractal takeover of the near-sky by carbonic tentacles that are uniquely black walnut.
Elsewhere in this blog I have explained what I mean about biomass walnut production, and my ‘non-cultivar’ approach. As the years pass I have become more aware of what this broad diversity means to the farm landscape, and how I believe it adds far more value than would planting reduced numbers of named selections (the dollar-for dollar-implication). In scientific terms, I have gone back to a genetic baseline, providing the means to identify a benchmark against which to detect change; in spiritual terms, I have given worth to individuals in my populations on terms quite distinct from the do-or-die dogma of modern agriculture. At the risk of being thought to have gone over to a lunatic fringe, it important that I expand on this. To do this, I’ll bring Thomas Merton into the discussion.
Thomas Merton was a Cistercian monk who deliberated long and hard on Nature. Because he came to it as a God-fearing person, he spent much of his time contemplating its sacredness. By the definition of ‘sacred’, Nature was made holy by religious association. As a holy person (said by others), he was therefore unlikely to consider that Nature was non-holy. Merton died in
“How necessary it is for monks to work in the fields, in the rain, in the sun, in the mud, in the clay, in the wind: these are our spiritual directors and our novice-masters. They form our contemplation. They instill us with virtue. They make us as stable as the land we live in[1].”
But I’d like to use another entry of Merton’s:
“Either you look at the universe as a very poor creation out of which no-one can make anything or you look at your own life and your own part in the universe as infinitely rich, full of inexhaustible interest, opening out into infinite possibilities for study and contemplation and interest and praise….”
I have deliberately excluded the last sentence: Beyond all and in all is God for the very simple reason that none of his contemplations actually deliver this beyond the level of an assumption. I believe that holiness can exist without referencing a deity, and that the reverence I have when I stand in an avenue of black walnuts derives from their capacity to fill my vision in a particular way, both when still and when moving, and that they now dwarf me, returning me to the natural condition when humans evolved amongst the trees. Perhaps that reverence has a hint from genetic memory of the dangers associated with tall trees. Otherwise, it may rest in the pleasant reflection that trees now exist where they haven’t for 150 years.
But, you see, Merton is right about those infinite possibilities, though they are as much to do with not knowing much about the future, and enjoying ourselves responsibly on the road Under Nature as much as possible. In a climate undergoing rapid change, I would rather be caring for thousands of not very expensive trees, than losing sleep at night because of what I have invested in a few. Many of my trees may not express worth in the way it is commonly measured today, but until I come to measure it I’ll enjoy having them around.
If you care for treatment of Under Nature as I mean it, please visit a future post.
