From Tiny Acorns Grow Mighty Oaks

The journey seemed endless as we sped home from East Anglia along the A14. Each side of the carriageway our progress was accompanied by the vibrant Autumn colours of the trees. All were dressed in their smartest uniforms of yellow, orange and red. When I had first travelled this road these trees had been spindly saplings protected in sheaths of plastic. Now grown and full of adult life with majestic stature, they were following the yearly cycle of life in full measure.

Walking Turnpike Fields the other day, I noticed the number of Oak tree seedlings which had emerged from the leaf litter beneath the parent trees. They stood with precocious boldness full of hope and expectation yet incredibly vulnerable to dryness, disease, animal and insect appetites and human careless disregard. If they survive, what would they see in Audlem in 100 or 200years time? What have their parent trees experienced in the time since they were tender saplings? These parent trees, now full of life and nestling comfortably in the landscape were young when the canal nearby was full of Shroppie Fly boats.

Now they stand tall, generating life through air, water, earth and the fire of the Sun. Approaching the resting time of winter, the intricate interactions which have driven life, begins to change, as with the last shout of colour, the leaves turn and die and fall to the earth to be recycled once again into future years’ life in the tree. But now, not just for the tree itself but all the interconnected forms of life. For insects, the tree is home and world for future generations; for birds nesting and feeding their young; for animals finding safety and warmth in hollow limbs. Beneath the ground also , an intimate partnership with fungal wood-wide web and the sharing of life food produced by photosynthesis by the now dying leaves to mycellial network. This network providing transport for nutrients and communication between trees.

For us humans too, the trees breathe out the oxygen we need and take in the carbon dioxide we breathe out. So often we sometimes just plunder the wood, blind to the rest of life which co-exists. These trees can be scary too. I remember a young lad from the inner city, newly started at a boarding school in the country, being asked if he liked being there. His reply was, “It’s alright – but it’s the trees that bugs me”. On a windy November night perhaps this is understandable.

However in the bright light of a summer’s day, the trees are welcome companions with gentle whispering in the breeze. Trees great and small give us and the life around so much. The least that we can do is provide the protection and nurture that they may stand tall in future generations.