When I get too wrapped up in my head and my thoughts start going in circles, a walk in the woods helps straighten me out. As readers of my blog will know, I like to bushwhack through the forest that surrounds my home. Out there I have to focus on my route through the trees and on my footing, one careful step at a time. And at every step I am surrounded by the sights, sounds, and smells of nature. There are old friends: familiar trees and rocks that serve as waymarkers. Like the glacial erratic boulder I described in Stones I have Known, or certain trees that are so distinctive that they stand out in a land full of trees.

Some trees stand out because they don’t stand up. We think of trees as having roots below ground, a vertical woody trunk, and branches. The branch configuration varies depending on the type of tree (see Bared Trees and Barred Owls) but will also be affected by environment. Trees need sunlight on their leaves (or needles) for photosynthesis and that light may be more or less available depending on where a tree finds itself living.

But seeds don’t get to choose where they land. It’s a crap shoot, the luck of the draw. So trees evolved a strategy to release lots of seeds in an effort to beat the odds. I’m amazed at how often seeds that were dealt a bad hand – like, say, landing on a boulder or a steep cliff – sprout anyhow and just keep on growing. And it astounds me just how tenacious a tree can be. Here are a few trees that defied the odds and survived, even if that meant growing sideways or bending over or even going around in a circle to reach the life-giving sunlight.

Why do some trees grow horizontally? Imagine a young tree, merrily growing vertically as nature intended, when wham! A big old tree beside it topples on top of the young tree, bending it sideways. This is a bad break indeed – a make-or-break moment you might say. But if the tree is flexible enough to keep growing – albeit sideways – it can survive and eventually find vertical again. Meanwhile, all evidence of the fallen tree goes back into the earth, nourishing the very tree it collapsed on.

One thing is for certain, whenever and wherever a seed lands, if it sprouts, sets down roots and sends out leaves, it will grow any which way it has to as it searches for the sun.

There are some trees whose contortions defy explanation – at least to me. The tree below is so unobtrusive, quietly growing among the other spruce, that it’s easy to miss this little forest miracle.

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Sometimes, as I’m making my way through the woods, the way ahead seems clear and I feel confident and sure of my direction. Other times I really can’t see the forest for the trees and I feel uncertain of the way forward. I might have to double-back or detour or even give up and turn back, as described in The Humbled Hiker. These experiences are a reflection of life itself, for me, for these trees, for all of us.

Robert Hunter described it best in his lyrics for the Grateful Dead song Truckin’. Trees can’t go truckin’, but the words could have been written for them as well as for you and me.

There are times on our life journey when we feel confident of the way ahead, even if it’s difficult and challenging. But there are other times when we feel lost and confused and don’t know which way is up, let alone how to move forward. It’s during troubled times we can learn a life lesson from these remarkable trees.

So if life’s got you down and you don’t know which way is up, hang in there and keep on going. It may take a while, but eventually you will find your way back up into the sunlight.

Sue McKay Miller
December 19, 2023