The Lesson Of The Fallen

In the eye of a woodturner the beauty of a twisted and knarled piece of wood isn’t something he creates himself. Instead it’s something God created but he releases from its cocoon. It’s also that such beauty isn’t formed without hardship. The giant tree which I first assumed to be a oak (simply because I didn’t actually check ) turned out an elm. The large misshapen root had to have been a trunk that was laid down by a flood and resprouted. Eventually the trunk became a root and fed the new stem until it was able to touch the sky.

But in 2016 a historic flood swept over the park and topped the ancient elm’s second attempt to live the life it was intended to have. When I found the tree a few years ago I mourned a little on it’s behalf. It was winter and tree was bare of leaves. I thought that surely it was gone and I even wondered who to speak with that would allow me to harvest some of the wood. But I was wrong. The giant elm tree was not dead. In fact it was very much alive and fighting to touch the sky once more.

I walked out to what was once the top of the tree only to find that it was now the bottom. The impact of the fall had driven some of the branches into the soft, fertile ground. And branches that survived were in the process of becoming roots. The entire length of the tree was sprouting new trunks. What was once a majestic single tree was becoming a majestic forest of its own. Simply because it invested what little bit of life it had left and started over for the second time. In time some of new trunks will prune themselves for the benefit of the whole but there will be life. I will check back from time to time and monitor it’s progress and maybe 30 years form now I’ll stand beneath the grove and remember the value of never surrendering to circumstance.

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