The Wisdom of the Trees

                                       The Wisdom of the Trees

                                                                                            Hema V. Raghavan

A casual morning stroll opened my eyes to an unresolved existential issue about the meaning of life and death. For more than four decades, I had taught Absurd Drama to undergraduate students of literature that deals with the absurdity or irrationality of existence. It had been an arduous talk to discuss questions relating to birth, life and death which cannot be causatively explained with human logic and reason.  I could offer no conclusive answers to the young learner’s questions as to why we enjoy no autonomy regarding our entry into and exit from the world and how we can elicit the meaning of life that connects the two interstices between birth and death.

But the small park close to our modest flat in South Delhi gave me the answer that I had been searching for so many decades. It is a rectangular park, shaded with trees that border the cemented paths circumscribing it. Delhi in the midst of its short spring spell is riotously colourful with blossoming flowers and tender green shoots on trees that include stems, flower buds and leaves. Delhi’s trees have so much life in them when one notices how the heavier and older leaves have fallen but instantly are replaced by the new leaves sprouting.

During my daily walk through the park, I noticed that the side paths that made the borders were strewn with brownish leaves fallen from the trees. The leaves varied in size depending on the parent tree, but even in their fallen state they looked as broad as their genetic code would permit them. Barring a few that looked withered, a large number of leaves  were seen to be in perfect shape and size though they had been wrenched out of their cosy comfort of resting on the  branches and lay in heaps down below. The brown leaves scattered in multitudes seemed as though they were enjoying a well deserved rest after their long toil on the branches to let out carbon-di-oxide and to produce chlorophyl vital for photosynthesis. On looking up, I was astonished to see the trees already in leaf. New leaves had sprouted covering the naked branches with a light leafy green coating. I marvelled at Nature’s phenomenon of restoring vitality and freshness even before the last leaf had dropped. The trees that continue to stand tall and erect do not ever mourn the loss of leaves, wisely accepting decay as a natural occurrence and celebrating the revival as a natural process of change. The trees do not despair as they seem to know that spring will fill their barren branches with living hues of rich colours of leaves, flowers and fruits. They have a greater understanding of Shelley’s lines “If winter comes can spring be far behind?”  Even if a few young shoots fall, it is not a concern for the trees for as long as the tree lives, leaves will spring forth. The wisdom of the trees in their perennial majesticity is given by The Ecclesiastes that says : To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven / A time to be born, and a time to die / a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.  This is what is said in Taittriya Upanishad: “Food (the essential of life) is Brahma; from food all the creatures are born and by food they live and after having departed, into food they again enter.”

There is no need to seek answers about life and death as long as we know that the two follow each other in time. So long as we live, let us cultivate the wisdom of the trees and celebrate life- the link between birth and death – that seeks not to mourn nor despair but to hope and take comfort that without death, there can be no birth.