Dendrolatry refers to the worship or veneration of trees, a practice observed throughout history by various cultures, including the Romans and numerous indigenous groups who considered trees sacred.
I grew up in a house wedged between the shores of the Salish Sea and the deep temperate rainforest of Vancouver Island. Trees were everywhere, trees for climbing, trees for sitting under, trees to hide behind when playing Hide and Seek.
50 years after I left Oyster Bay I can still smell the deep, steamy Douglas Fir aroma that pervaded every walk in the forest or was left in the pitch on my hands from climbing, just because the tree was there. And there is a reverence for trees that remains, the feeling of being small when walking on a loamy trail lined with ferns beneath a canopy of coastal giants. A closeness to my ancestors, nature and God.
I can’t imagine living where there are no trees. I remember when I was in Egypt that even in the desert the canal that bordered our camp was lined with trees, often with many people shading under them from the hot midday sun!
“It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson
Amen!
Mark
(Original image by Fietzfotos @ Pixabay)