The Mystical Oak

I actually went to the Reserve to visit the Goddess Oak. I wanted to show the form of the face in the hollow. I can still see it, but I don't know how convincing it is to anyone else.

I sat with the Goddess, who has the energy of Hera or Kali, rather than some compassionate mother. Maybe Freya! Yes, maybe Freya. Anyway, as I sat there I was thinking about life and ethics and how to live. This was the tree who told me I needed to be willing to tell uncomfortable stories and she had an uncomfortable story for me.

GO: Why do you think that large animals are the first to go extinct?

Me: Because of their longer reproductive cycles so it takes them longer to adapt to changed environments and they can't breed quickly to rebuild numbers?

GO: Exactly. Now think of the trees.

Me: What... you mean trees will be the first plants...

GO: I mean that we don't have time to adapt to the climate and the pests and diseases.

Me: A world without trees?

GO: Unheimlich.

I am listening to an interesting book. John Perlin's A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization. It's dry, I must admit, but powerful. Cutting down forests for fuel and fields is one thing, but so much of it was done for war (ships, smelting metal for weapons) and greed (making elaborate buildings and products from wood and smelting metal for coins and decorative work). Wood was used in prodigious quantities for making pottery and heating bathhouses. Wood became such a rare commodity that wars were fought (using wood) over woodlands. The loss of forests caused erosion, soil degradation, the silting up of harbours and climate change. All before the Common Era.

Even in pre-colonial Africa, deforestation ran rampant. Did you know that 2000 years before some Brit "discovered" how to make steel, Bantu speaking people were making it on the shores of Lake Victoria? Trees were lost everywhere on the continent where there was iron ore - even when the nearest woodlands were three days journey away.

We humans have waged war of forests from the get-go.

I asked the Goddess Oak why another tree had said that the trees forgive us while that's harder if not impossible for the animals. She said it's because what we call emotion is different for trees. She said I do not have words for that so she could not explain.

Afterwards, I walked past the trees suffering from Acute Oak Disease and Sooty Bark Disease and felt sad. Then, this tree called me.

He said his name was Kairos and he would like to be known as the Mystical Oak. Kairos seems to mean "the propitious time" and it felt like a great time to meet him for while the Goddess Oak is wise and honest, she is not especially warm. This tree was welcoming.

I loved the dramatic shape, the spread and the bends and spirals. Kairos has shed some lower branches but they look as though they form a frame around the trunk. Moss grows high up the trunk and along the limbs. I felt happy near him and sat down to meditate.

Birds. Wind in the leaves. A sense of belonging. Feeling rooted. Safe.

This video shows the whole of my walk - starting with some calm muntjac, then raucous rooks and finally the tree.

Of course, I saw swans too. Some stills.