Once again, I am listening to Richard Power's The Overstory. I really can't recommend that highly enough. It was wonderful the first time, but the more I have learned about trees and the more I have sat with trees, the more I appreciate it. The trees seem to speak to all of the characters. What's true of fiction could as well be true in life. I mean, look at 1984.
As I looked up, I was thinking about all the branches as explorations of different ways of living - which reminded me of that long series I did on John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, where he talks of the need to explore different ways of living.
Mostly, I don't think much. I feel "not alone" and I rest. i look at the leaves, with the green bleeding out. I look at the shape and structure, the harmonious enterprise of it all. I feel the strength and the continuity - and, at the same time, the perpetual becoming.
And I wonder what it is like to be a deciduous tree in winter. Is it like hibernation or just a different way of being? What processes occur in the cold, dark months? What preparations are on going? What is unfolding in the hidden hearts of oak?
I recalled the vision I had of this tree as a mature oak - old but not in decline... and I thought that in my vision perhaps I was seeing this tree at the equivalent age to me. A tree at the threshold, about to head into the inexorable decline. But, for a tree, the decline is long and it is rich. With age, the tree gives more and more until, in death it gives itself utterly.
It is not a bad role model to have.
I loved The Overstory. and yes, it would be worthwhile to read again.
What an interesting question about winter trees! I expect "something" is going on because the tree is still alive. It would, I expect, feel and sense things differently, and respond differently.
Beautifully written last paragraph.