The Arboreal aura
An elm is a tree. So is a fir. So is an oak. All of them trigrams. This is about trees, not the elm per se. This is not about what science knows of trees: the names and types, the functions and parts (roots,stem, branches, twigs, leaves). You can know all the available facts about a tree and still not know a tree. You can spend a lifetime in contemplation of a single tree, because from its pattern of fractal growth the archetypical structure of the universe can be divined.
There is more to a tree than can simply observed through your eyes and mind.
What do you know of trees? Do you know of their aliveness and their aura? Do you know of their connectedness? Do you sense their enchantment? There is some mysterious kinship between humans and trees. Lore has endowed trees with spirit, such as Tolkein’s Trees of Valinor and the Ents.
In Norse mythology, the humankind is created from the tree: the woman from an Elm, and the man from an Ash. Rooted deep in the earth, and extending high into the sky, the tree is a cosmological construct in Norse and Near-East mythologies. The two trees of the Garden of Eden represent the soul’s departure from an original state of Oneness (Life) in order to experience the physical world of duality (Good and Evil).
If you fail to be enchanted by the beauty of trees, you cannot escape their vital ecological function. Here are some simple things you can do.
Plant a tree. Save a tree. Oppose the destruction of forests (in particular rain forests) by boycotting the products they are used to produce. If you can’t do anything for trees, let a tree do something for you. Let it lead you from knowledge to knowing.