A Gallery of Trees: Ways We Fit Them into Our Lives

Driving to town one day recently, I noticed The Big Switch.  Rather than carrying kayaks on roof-tops, passing cars were now carrying Christmas trees.  It got me to thinking about how we fit trees into our lives ... so much so at this time of year especially, that when I read that the President wanted to add a 15¢ tax on the sale of all Christmas trees to (of all things) promote their image, I thought that, of the many images in the world, the Christmas tree is already right up there on top, even in non-Christian countries.  I remember walking along the streets of Bangkok one 90º day when I saw a brightly decorated Christmas tree in a shop window.  "Now what's that doing there," I said to myself.  Of course, I immediately realized that it was December--despite the tropical climate. "But this isn't a Christian country," I countered ... only to remind myself that Christmas was (now) more a commercial holiday than a religious one.  Shopper's Paradise Hong Kong (our next stop) revealed even more decorations plus German carols piped into elevators and (one day) a Santa being pulled down the street in a rickshaw.

So I decided to go through my photos and look for ways we do indeed fit trees into our lives in this and other cultures.  Besides celebration, some trees are used in a spiritual context.  Some for shade ... for fodder ... for food.  Some to attract tourists.  Some to provide warmth.

Too bad we have to chop these dear things down but we do bring them into our homes and dress them up.

If you go to Bali, you'll find occasional statues, trees, large rocks, shrines wrapped with a black-white-grey checkered cloth called Poleng, indicating that whatever is wrapped contains a spiritual (or even magical) charge.  Or, as we sometimes say, that a spirit dwells within.

Sacred tree in Bali

When I visited Paphos, Cyprus, one year, I ran across this tree with its myriad strips of cloth (each with a prayer written on it) tied onto the branches.

Prayer tree above Agia Salomonis Catacomb, Paphos, Cyprus

Here are two photos taken just outside Kathmandu, Nepal.

This is considered a sacred tree.  What makes it sacred, I don't know.  But being sacred, its leaves and branches have not been cut for fodder or firewood ....

....as has its neighbor.  It's easy to spot the non-sacred everyday trees because in this deforested land, this is what they can look like.

A banyan tree outside Pokhara, Nepal, provides these porters with shade and a place to set their dokos (baskets).

One of many in an Indio, California, grove of date palms.

Here's more a case of fitting ourselves into the tree's life by slipping tin cans over the trunk to protect it from bark nibblers.

Willow or poplar trees in Ladakh, India

Here's a vintage photo taken by my father in the early '40s.

A fallen giant sequoia has been turned into a tourist attraction.  Sequoia National Park.

Ah, the end of several good trees, now ready to bring us warmth.