Welcome to the Bespoke Traveler podcast. A space where curious explorers can listen to immersive tales connecting nature, culture, and identity.
Come journey with us as we question ideas of home, deepen relationships with place, trouble notions of border, and challenge our perceptions of memory.
In this episode of Bespoke Traveler, we look at how trees can teach us about resilience, patience, and finding fulfillment within ourselves.
In the Kingdom of Trees
Branches embrace, murmuring to each other in a language long lost to human understanding. Their shadows cast a cooling darkness upon the forest. I stand entranced, looking up at the exchange of light and gloom, watching the lacework of leaves tremble and sigh. Deep groans reach me as somewhere bough rubs against bough. The wind whistles through gaps and it almost feels as if the woods are whispering to me.
A particular sycamore catches my attention: silver-grey bark shimmering among reddish-brown neighbors, glossy lobed-leaves beckoning. I stroke the trunk, its roughness grating my hand as I introduce myself. I play hide-and-seek with the exposed roots carving sinuous paths along the undergrowth. The forest swallows me in its mystery. Human time disappears. I am in a shared dream-state with the inhabitants of this place.
I know why the Celts held sacred rites within groves, why Egyptians believed the afterlife was a sylvan setting. I feel kinship with trees, they comfort and usher deep joy. I also sense their eldritch qualities. Trees have held onto that primordial magic which frightens us because we cannot solve it. Trees are priceless. Look beyond them as shelter from tempests, shade for weary travelers, source of lumber and pulp, food giver, oxygen source. Trees have so much to teach us through their ancient wisdom.
Trees stoically undergo the cycle of life — accepting earth’s organic rhythms and the progression from birth to death. Their needs are simple; yet they adapt to the complexity of their biomes. They belong to themselves, uncompromising in their individuality, while generous to their community: using their mycelial network to communicate, fostering coexistence with insects, birds, and animals.
I think often about trees and how to be more like them. Resilient like the felled hemlock struck by lightning which sprouted buds the next spring. Patient like the myrtle I used to climb as a child, whose branches accepted the ebb and flow of all visitors. Content in the holiness of being, like the swaying eucalyptus along the coast. A bridge between soil and sky, but never losing their inherent nature, trees are my mentors, my confidantes, my guides.
I don’t have a favorite tree — how can I choose among their glory? From the eager beech sapling to sagacious oaks and erudite banyans, they fill me with wonder.
In the kingdom of trees I reconnect with the eternal. In their company through each season, I discover self-confidence. Meditating at their feet, I learn endurance. Paying attention to the ferocity of their growth, even as they seem mute and abiding entities, my perception of time changes, my tempo slows until I release my fears and return to my beginning as a seed within the earth.
Bespoke Traveler Note:
The indigenous Gond people of central India have reverenced and tended to their trees in reciprocity for nourishment and protection. In “The Night Life of Trees,” three Gond artists and storytellers reveal to readers the magic of nighttime when the trees come into a life of their own. Find this beautiful work from independent publisher Tara Books at their website www.tarabooks.com (https://tarabooks.com/shop/the-night-life-of-trees/.).
Thanks for listening. “In the Kingdom of Trees” was written and narrated by Atreyee Gupta. To read this and other tales, head to our website at www.bespoketraveler.com.
