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Good Morning,

Today is Tu Bishevat, the Jewish festival of the New Year for Trees.
I don’t know how my love of trees began, when my father took me walking by Loch Lomond, when I first saw pine forests in winter, or when I climbed the huge pear-tree in my grandparents’ garden to pick the grey-green fruit.

According to an ancient Jewish text, all living beings have their unique melody: The trees of the field say: ‘Then shall the forests sing before God’. Sometimes, especially on winter nights when the frozen mist condenses on the cold, bare branches, I sense I overhear them.
Old trees are venerable companions, like much-loved teachers. They help me feel that I belong here on earth.

Our lives are diminished if we lose our reverence for trees, for all the rich world of interdependent, growing life.

This is a physical, biological truth. Humanity’s most urgent task is to change our treatment of the natural world. If we destroy it, it will destroy us. Without the forests, our lungs will be starved of breath. If we fail to learn soon how to shop, travel, and generate power without destroying the earth, we will bequeath to the future a largely uninhabitable planet. We don’t have the right.

It’s also a spiritual truth. To the mystics, all creation is one great tree of life. Its roots are in heaven; everything in the world below is invisibly attached to its branches through which it is secretly nourished. To destroy the buds of that tree is the very essence of sin. 
God, make me a planter, of kindness, respect for your world, and trees!