Tree Funeral

There’s a hole in the canopy today

big pieces of the tree, still laying around in Lancaster Cemetery, with the big still-in-the-ground chunk of trunk marked with an X, so the crew knew which one to cut

How do you think trees find the gap in the canopy? And when they do, do you think they tell each other about it? We know that they tell each other so much—through fungal/mycelial networks between roots; through chemical signals absorbed by leaves.

I wonder if they tell each other how to find the light.

I like to think so. Because I feel similar. Blindly sending out exploratory branches this way and that. Groping, eyeless, toward a better world. I don’t know how to get there. I have some ideas of what needs to change, but no grand vision; no full solution. And whatever vision I might come up with, I know it will be partial; incomplete; a malformed, impoverished impersonation of the canopy I know we can become, if we all reach together. If you, friend, feel some warmth on your leaves, could you send me a signal? If you feel some moisture on your roots, can you tell me which way to reach?

In The Overstory, Richard Powers wrote: “You and [that tree] come from a common ancestor. A billion and a half years ago, the two of you parted ways. But even now, after an immense journey in separate directions, that tree and you still share a quarter of your genes.”

A meditation I sat with, back when I was sitting regularly, quoted an old Zen Buddhist named Dogen. All his phrases are fanciful, perplexing, fun. “The whole universe is moistened with nectar, and the truth is ready to harvest,” he said. And this one:

“Ancestral teachers realize the empty sky and the great earth.”

This tree is not my ancestor (though we share some ancestors). But it is still my teacher. As I thought about what to say about this tree, what reflections to offer on its life and legacy, the tree started to teach me what Dogen meant.

I forget that “realize” has multiple meanings. Not just “to understand clearly,” but also to fulfill. To make something its most actualized, most fully-realized version.

Like the ancestral teachers Dogen spoke of, this tree realized the empty sky. It made the sky its most fully-realized self; filled with branches housing multitudes. It realized the great earth. It made the earth into a whole living intelligence of roots, mycelium, and bacteria; into “a queer collective of different beings from different ‘kingdoms’ (taxonomically speaking) who have decided to engage in the ongoing intercellular conversation of living together.”¹

May we go and do likewise. Go out, friends, and realize the sky.

And if you find a hole in the canopy—if you feel some warmth on your leaves—send me a signal.

I organized a funeral for a tree

I walk past it multiple times a week. In a big Victorian cemetery that my kids play in like a playground. My firstborn learned her letters on these grave stones, in the early pandemic before we knew playgrounds were safe.

The Ash Borer’s probably to blame. The tree hadn’t leafed in years. Giant pieces of it are still laying around (see picture above). The ground has been too soft for the crew to finish removing it. They’re going to turn it into mulch, spread it around the cemetery. They’re going to plant new native trees where it had been. All good things. But I’m still sad. That tree has been keeping watch since before the civil war. Maybe since the 1840s (the stump is more like a pillar right now, and I haven’t cleaned up any of the cut pieces enough to count the rings). I know other people are sad, too. Why not be sad together? Why not commemorate the loss?

A chance to reflect on mortality. To engage with mystery. To honor a life, so alien and yet so intertwined with ours. A chance to assemble and build our human community.

I messaged a friend who got me in touch with the cemetery keepers. With their blessing, I got to work.

Pastor Elisa, from the Mennonite church I attend, was the first to agree to eulogize. A friend’s rabbi was the second. Do you know, he asked me, that there’s a whole Jewish holiday dedicated to trees? I did not! A friend getting his Buddhist chaplaincy was the third. One of his Tantric teachers had taught him to acknowledge the land—yes, to acknowledge who lived on and tended it before it was stolen by colonizers, but also: to introduce himself to it. To acknowledge its perspective; its sentience; its desires.

He wanted to know if the event page or the flyer would mention impermanence, transition, grief, inseparability from/interdependence with the earth, awareness of and connection to our surroundings, noticing; stuff like that. I told him that all of those themes were obvious to me, but a flyer isn’t a lot of space, and maybe it’s best to hook people’s interest with novelty. I hope I struck the right balance.

the teaser image from the event page, https://partiful.com/e/azK7zDhionYEcKytJS32

I contacted a Cherokee friend who got me in touch with someone from Circle Legacy Center, a group that is organized by and advocates for First Nations peoples. Unfortunately, the person I got in touch with did not think delivering a tree eulogy was the right fit for him. Instead, my friend found a Lakota tree prayer that she will make past tense and offer at the ceremony.

I really wanted another friend to eulogize, who practices a mix of shamanism and various Afro-Caribbean spiritualities like Santaría, but her personal life has been too busy for her to commit to more. Maybe next time.

So five perspectives will do. Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Lakota by way of a Cherokee, and me, representing—through my ceremony-opening remarks, which you read at the top of this post—the Scientific Animist perspective, insofar as it exists and I understand it.

New Ritual

Part of my intent with this newsletter and project has been to explore new ritual.

If “Scientific Animism” is a good name for the emerging philosophy encapsulated in works like The Overstory and Braiding Sweetgrass, what else could this movement become? Could it be more than just a philosophy? Could it be something we practice together? And if so, how exactly would we do that?

Interfaith tree funerals might be the closest way I’ve found so far.

1. A. Laurie Palmer put it this way for Green Dreamer’s ~alchemize~ program. Hear more of her Lessons from lichen worlds.