Winter Trees as a Portal to Aliveness

The splendor of trees accustomed to winter is often enchanting. Perhaps it is the fact that they dominate the nature when every else is dormant or dead. We see them, but even more importantly we breathe them in.

For most of us, these trees are the symbol of being alive, right when we are in strong need of such symbolism. Trees and people cannot be separated.

They’ve been a huge part of our civilization since the beginning of time, and it is not a surprise that some cultures still have a place for trees in their beliefs.

Key Takeaways:

• In the early 1900s, Anna Botsford Comstock wrote Trees at Leisure about the science, splendor and spiritual rewards of trees.
• Comstock felt that winter was when trees expressed the most individuality.
• Comstock’s book should be supplemented by Art Young’s Trees at Night and by works by Paul Klee and Ursula Le Guin.

“There is something about the skeletal splendor of winter trees — so vascular, so axonal, so pulmonary — that fills the lung of life with a special atmosphere of aliveness.”

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