Episode Transcript:

0:00:12 - Jonathan

Hello everyone and welcome to Tree Speech. I am Jonathan Zautner and today we are talking about love. It's the week of Valentine's Day and I'll speak for myself when I say I think we could all use a little extra love in this time. We'll also hear from Dori Robinson a little later in the episode as she takes us through a meditation that honors both love and the Jewish holiday, tu B'Shvat, the new year of trees, which is also celebrated this week. Even though things feel very unsettled and have been rattling my nervous system, I have really been trying to lean in toward love these past few weeks. I had some big, major life events happen. Mainly, I got married and then went to Paris, the city of love, on a wonderful trip where, even though it was winter, I saw beautiful trees and gardens and tree-inspired art that I will discuss at a later time. But what I realize is that by having an open heart our true strength is found.

This power is what we will need to defend and protect and stand up for and uphold those things which are most important to us, mainly compassion and humanity, in a world that wants to strip these integral connectors away. Also, the importance of joy should not be overlooked, even in uncertain times, and so we aim for this episode to be a respite, an ease to tension and strain, and a celebration of some of the many facets of love. Celebration of some of the many facets of love. To do this, we're going to discuss the five love languages that are featured in the 1992 book by Gary Chapman, which describes five different ways that love can be received and expressed. Now, we're not saying that these are the only ways to express love, and we are not promoting the book, but we feel that any way that love is shown is beneficial to our world and our lives. And we will examine the five love languages as they pertain to trees, the languages being words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time and physical touch. We'll start with words of affirmation.

This tree story takes place in Australia, where the City of Melbourne's Urban Forest and Ecology team created an interactive map called the Urban Forest Visual that allows users to click on any tree in the Melbourne area and provides information about its genus and age. Each of the 70,000 trees has its own ID number and email address. I'll link to this map in our show notes so you can check it out Now. The purpose of the email address for the trees was for members of the public to be able to inform the council of any trees that needed attention, such as a tree declining in health. However, since its launch, people have used the emails to send love letters and fan mail instead. Now the trees don't only get emails from people within the country, from Australians, but they have received emails from people all over the world. I'll also link to a site that publishes some of the letters that the trees receive. Here's an example of one.

Dear, smooth-barked apple myrtle. I'm your biggest admirer. I have always wanted to meet you but tragically I'm stuck in New York. I think you are the most handsome tree of them all, tall with an inviting open canopy. I love to just dream of you the smell of your clusters of white flowers, the sight of your lush, dark green foliage and feel of your patterned bark. You inspire me to live life to the fullest and pursue my dreams. You keep growing despite the terrible tragedies in the world. You are loved and deserve the world. Love some person in New York. A special project officer also responds to the tree emails, and it has been estimated that since the program has been launched, over 10,000 emails have been sent to the trees. The interactive map responsible for this email craze was created as part of Melbourne's urban forest strategy. An urban forest consists of all the trees and vegetation within a city, and a healthy urban forest plays a role in keeping the city livable and healthy.

So I ask you, is there a tree that you might want to send a love letter to? What would you say and what would you like to hear in return? Our next love language is acts of service. For this language, we are going to look at the lore behind the holiday and the life of Saint Valentine.

Saint Valentine's Day is based on the life of St Valentine, a Roman martyr, who was beheaded possibly on February 14th in the year 273. Now, for a period of time, emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage to keep men available as soldiers for the Roman army. This was a time when young men were needed for the army, and this decision was based on the idea that unmarried soldiers fought better than married soldiers, because the latter might be afraid of what might happen to their wives and families if they died. Nice huh. However, saint Valentine, as a physician and priest, refused to accept this and continued to marry young couples. One story is that, to remind these men of their vows, st Valentine is said to have given them hearts cut from parchment, a possible origin of the widespread use of hearts on St Valentine's Day. Now the story is a little more complicated than we are going to go into today, but basically, claudius finds out that St Valentine has been marrying these people and has him sentenced to death.

According to the legend, while in jail, st Valentine befriended the jailer's daughter, who was named Julia, and healed her from her blindness. Who was named Julia, and healed her from her blindness. On the eve of his death, he wrote her a letter signed From your Valentine. Valentine was buried in Rome and it is said that Julia planted a pink-blossomed almond tree near his grave. Today, the almond tree remains a symbol of abiding love and friendship. The almond tree remains a symbol of abiding love and friendship.

Now, another tree story that's associated with Saint Valentine is a folk tale of the Valentine Oak. In a version of this story, a large oak tree that grew from an acorn Saint Valentine himself planted, became a symbol of love and fertility, where people would leave love notes and tokens of affection at its base. Another version of this legend tells that St Valentine, while on a journey, came across a dry and barren oak tree. He blessed the tree and, as a result, it miraculously bloomed with leaves and flowers, symbolizing the revival of love and life. So, whatever the legend may be, I like to think of Valentine's Day as rooted in acts of service and love, of listening to one's intuitive guide over a worldly agenda to benefit others and nature. No-transcript. I told you that I got married last month and as part of this ceremony, our mothers read a passage from Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass that I think is particularly fitting. Here is the recording of their words.

0:08:37 - Jackie

There was a custom in the mid-1800s of planting twin trees to celebrate a marriage and the starting of a home. To celebrate a marriage and the starting of a home. The stance of these two, just 10 feet apart, recalls a couple standing together on the porch steps holding hands. The reach of their shade links the front porch with the barn across the road, creating a shady path back and forth for that young family. I realize that those first homesteaders were not the beneficiaries of that shade, at least not as a young couple. They must have meant for their people to stay here. Surely those two were sleeping up on Cemetery Road long before the shade arched across the road. I'm living today in the shady future. They imagined drinking sap from trees planted with their wedding vows. They could not have imagined me many generations later, and yet I live in the gift of their care.

0:09:43 - Anne-Marie

Such a responsibility I have to these people, and these trees left to me an unknown, come to live under the guardianship of the twins with a bond physical, emotional, spiritual. I have no way to give them back. Their gift to me is far greater than I have ability to reciprocate. They're so huge as to be nearly beyond my care. Although I could scatter grand mills of fertilizer at their feet and turn the hose on them in summer drought, perhaps all I can do is love them. All I know to do is to leave another gift for them and for the future, those next unknowns who will live here.

0:10:23 - Jonathan

Special thanks to Jackie Vandenberg and Anne-Marie Roach for their reading For physical touch. I would like to discuss the act of tying a wish into the branches of a tree the tradition of the wish tree. The tree is an eternal symbol of life, of strength, of wisdom and of longevity. Above all, it knows how to adapt to this world and survive, all the while making everything near it flourish. As long as trees have existed and people have been around to witness their grace, they have inspired stories of wishes granted and dreams come true. A Celtic tale involves tying a loose knot in a willow branch as one makes a wish. When the wish is fulfilled, the knot is untied and a gift is left to thank the tree. In ancient Japan, people tied colorful papers with written wishes to bamboo branches. A similar tradition can be found in Turkey. While in Hong Kong wishes were tied to oranges that were cast into the canopy of trees, in North America, native American tribes like the Lakota and Seminole hung colored prayer ties from a tree during the Sundance ceremony, with each color representing a different theme.

This coming weekend, at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, yoko Ono's wish tree project will be displayed to celebrate her 92nd birthday with a grove of 92 trees installed in her honor. I'll link the page which describes this art installation in our show notes. Visitors are invited to contribute by tying personal wishes to the trees, creating a large-scale yet intimate activation of her social practice work. Yoko Ono's instructions are simple and clear when she says Make a wish, write it down on a piece of paper, tie it around a branch of a wish tree, ask your friends to do the same, keep wishing until the branches are covered with wishes.

So, listeners, I challenge you to join in. Wherever you may be located, take some time and think of a wish that you have for yourself or for the world, and write it down and tie it around a favorite tree plant or hang it in a favorite place. I believe that the combination of the energy of all of our wishes will be powerful. For our last language Quality Time, we'll be led through a meditation and celebration of love in Tubishvat by Dori Robinson. Take it away, dori.

0:13:14 - Dori

This year, the Jewish celebration of the New Year of the Trees, tubishvat, will occur on February 13th. Originally an agricultural festival and later connected to offering tithes to the Temple in Jerusalem, the holiday evolved in the 17th century when Kabbalists created a ritual fruit-eating ceremony. Not unlike the Passover Seder, using imagery and poetry, the Tu B'Shvat Seder is split into four sections, reflecting the seasons and symbolizing different ways that we relate to trees in our everyday lives, including relationships with land and place, relationships with community, relationships with the world and relationships with spirituality. The holiday has also become a time when Jews around the world plant trees in memory of loved ones. All of these feel quite relatable to me in my everyday work to care for the environment, my family, my community and greater society. Tewbushvat is commonly called the birthday of the trees, the birthday of the trees, but how does one determine when a tree is born? Or rather, how does one determine a date to begin the agricultural cycle In Israel?

It became clear that this time of year is when the sap begins to flow and the trees start to awaken from their winter slumber. Like the trees, many of us in North America have felt a bit stalled in the last few months, whether it has been because of the cold or being away for various holidays and now acclimating to a new year, or because of so much strife in the world. Many of us have felt heavy and weighed down. If I have learned anything from tree speech over the years, it is that even when it looks as though trees are dormant, there is much going on underneath. For myself, I feel as though I've been bombarded by news stories of strife and unrest around the world, as well as in my own communities. This can be overwhelming at times, causing me to freeze when I want to take action. In many ways, it feels to me like transitioning from winter to spring, from overwhelming stillness into movement. How can we embrace this part of the cycle, this transition? As Jonathan has pointed out, the love languages may have what we all need. Maybe by using the love languages we can support ourselves as we transition into a time of renewal. I invite us to take a moment to meditate on the ways that love languages and trees can support us in this transitioning season.

Find a quiet spot to be still for a moment, sitting or standing, facing a tree or plant or window, or not. However, you can arrive, arrive, close your eyes if that feels right to you. Take a deep breath in and, as you exhale, check in with yourself. Ask yourself what needs attention, tension With a few more deep breaths, consider each love language With a deep breath in and, as you exhale, consider acts of service. Is there a way you can be further involved in your community, your family, your friends or yourself? Are there ways, large or small, that you can tend to the needs of others? Sit with that for a moment, deep breath in and, as you exhale, consider quality time. Who needs your time right now? What time do you need from others? Might there be a way to ask for this? Sit with that for a moment.

Deep breath in and, as you exhale, consider physical touch. Is there tension in your body? Can you move in such a way to release it, perhaps massaging the tight spots? Perhaps there is a tree, a person or a pet you'd like to be near? With one more deep breath, feel the way the earth supports your physical body. Sit with that for a moment, deep breath in and, as you exhale, consider giving and receiving gifts.

What gifts do you receive from nature every day? Receiving gifts? What gifts do you receive from nature every day? From maple syrup to fruit, to a wooden table, to the trees outside our windows offering us beautiful views? We are surrounded by the gifts of trees. What gifts do you offer the trees or nature? Sit with that for a moment, deep breath in and, as you exhale, consider words of affirmation. Think about the messages you tell yourself. How can they be more affirming or uplifting? With one more deep breath, invite yourself to let all these options sit with you for a while. Maybe they are useful to you today or tomorrow, next week or next month, maybe it's simply a chance to continue building your loving relationships with trees, nature and yourself.

0:20:38 - Jonathan

Thank you, Dori. I'm really loving these meditations.

0:20:42 - Dori

We're sending you all love.

0:20:44 - Jonathan

We love you everyone in all the love languages. Happy Valentine's Day.

0:20:49 - Dori

And thank you for joining Tree Speech today.

0:21:01 - Music

Thank you. The end of summer, the empire at our fingertips. The autumn to discover If I would have had the worthiness to be the perfect lover. Would you stay under the willow tree when I asked if you would be? Would you be? Would you be my valentine? Would you be? Would you be my valentine? Still, I lie within the memory, devoted as your lover. You could take my hands, cover your eyes and tell me there's no other, would you be? Would you be my valentine? Would you be? Would you be my valentine? Pray to find the right one when the time is right. The Would you be? Would you be my valentine? Would you be? Would you be my valentine?