Tree Reflection

After watching and reading about trees I can honestly say that there is a lot more that is cool about trees than just their long ancestry and incredible build. I really enjoyed the poem and the Hermann Hesse article but I was really excited to watch Treeline as it is a piece of video journalism. Aside from this piece being wonderfully produced, I would say the most eye-opening aspect was hearing how the Arborists in the film depicted the lives of these trees. A line that stuck with me was “In the past 5,000 years there has been an enormous amount of climate change, they can’t move to get away, they have to stay and face what comes.” This not only speaks to the trees as part of nature but the trees and what they stand for, toughness and endurance. When the film travels overseas to Japan, this spirituality of the trees takes a different form in Shinto religion when the Shinto Priest explains how their way of thinking surrounds the idea that life is made possible by humans and nature, and how nature is to be respected as it is the idea of God. What I found most profound though was “Kodama”. This is a spirit that lives inside the tree, it is said that there can be one living in each tree, and most interesting to me, is that you can feel their existence there.

Overall I enjoyed this film and how it depicted the topic. I thought the imagery was incredible, there were some shots that were really breathtaking. I also enjoyed learning everyone’s story with trees, maybe I’ll try tree skiing one day!

 

(This was my favorite image)