THE SINGING TREES

Don’t rush things. That’s my motto. So said Treebeard, or Fangorn, as he is also known. He became one of my favourite characters in Tolkien’s book The Two Towers, the second volume of the epic Lord of the Rings novel. His slowness and reflections on life provide a much-needed breather in the books, which are otherwise filled with fast-paced battles, death and destruction. When I read the books at age 13, I was deeply fascinated by the fantasy world in which elf queens who lived in giant trees were also terrifyingly beautiful, and where the Ents, the shepherds of the trees, could speak. I believe that Tolkien’s detailed depictions of the Ents are one reason why I have always viewed trees, and especially their bark, with such great curiosity. The deep furrows and crevices of old trees, and the suppleness and smooth surfaces of young tree trunks. All different in their colour and expression. If you join me for a walk in the forest, you will sometimes see me grabbing my smartphone and taking pictures of bark, particularly beautiful trunks, and I may even give them a little pat as I pass. I’m not the only one doing this, although I don’t outright hug the trees as people in the parks of Japan and China might. I saw a person do it in Copenhagen, though, one morning in the King’s Gardens. She appeared to be Asian, and she stood there quietly embracing one of the big linden trees. My guess is that she was practicing Taoism. The Taoist master Mantak Chia teaches students to meditate with trees as a way of releasing negative energies. In his Cosmic Tree Healing Qigong method, Chia demonstrates how to align your body with the energetic field of a tree. He explains that the tree is a natural processor that can help you transform your body’s sick or negative energy into positive, vital life force energy. As you connect your energy with the tree, you facilitate your own physical and emotional healing. Taoist theory posits that because trees stand very still, they are better at absorbing the Earth’s energy and the universal force from the heavens. Fascinating research that studies the vibration energy of plants can be found in Damanhur in Italy. This eco-village is home to a forest laboratory that features a beautiful choir of singing trees. Yes, you read it right ... Singing trees. Since 1976, researchers have been developing an instrument that can capture the electromagnetic variations on the surface of plant leaves and roots, and convert them into sounds. Most incredibly, these trees appear to control their own electrical reactions via a feedback mechanism, thus demonstrating a kind of awareness of and preference for certain types of music. You can see a video about these ‘plant concerts’ on Youtube. Jonathan Drori has written the fascinating book Around the World in 80 Trees. He describes how, as a child, he found that trees were what made an otherwise flat world three-dimensional, and that they existed for people to climb up in them. He guides the reader through 80 different trees – but the picture he leaves is rather depressing. For example, in the story of the Brazilwood tree – for which Brazil was named – the tree was so sought-after as a source of red dye that it became ruthlessly depleted, and today only 2,000 trees are left on earth. The author believes that some trees have changed the course of history, such as the cinchona tree of Peru, whose bark contains quinine, a compound that helps prevent and cure malaria. More than half the Europeans that colonised certain parts of the world died of malaria, so the author believes that the cinchona tree was critical to the European colonies’ survival in the tropics. And the record-holders are also impressive: The oldest of trees are several thousands of years old, the tallest are over 100 metres high, and the largest can have treetops so large that an entire marketplace can fit in their shade. In this issue of Nordic Living, we pay tribute to wood as a design material. Allow Treebeard to conclude with a little song: In the willow-meads of Tasarinan I walked in the Spring. Ah! the sight and the smell of the Spring in Nan-tasarion! And I said that was good. I wandered in Summer in the elm-woods of Ossiriand. Ah! the light and the music in the Summer by the Seven Rivers of Ossir! And I thought that was best. To the beeches of Neldoreth I came in the Autumn. Ah! the gold and the red and the sighing of leaves in the Autumn in Taur-na-neldor! It was more than my desire. To the pine-trees upon the highland of Dorthonion I climbed in the Winter. Ah! the wind and the whiteness and the black branches of Winter upon Orod-na-thön! My voice went up and sang in the sky.