To hug a tree

Kerry Williams
, 26 November 2024
To hug a tree
Oak tree © Emma Chaplin

By Kerry Williams

Communications Officer - Conservation

There’s no doubt you look a bit weird when you hug a tree. Wandering through a nature reserve or park, stopping and saying “ooh, hang on a minute”. Peeling away from your mates to awkwardly trot over to that leafy specimen that caught your eye, wrapping your arms around it and grinning.

We’ve lost our connection to nature, especially in our Western work-from-home world. It’s evident from how we treat it. And many of us think we don’t need it. We don’t need to forage for our food; feeling different plant textures and smelling to check if things are rotten. Our takings are sterilised, uniform, pre-packaged in plastic, door-to-door delivered.

Conversely, we’re obsessed, an eco-anxiety mess. Scrolling, absorbing, hour by hour, feeling hopeless, redundant, like we’ve failed. Fret not, friends, there’s an antidote.

Many of us have laid on the grass or sand on a warm summer’s day, but have you tried it in the rain or the cold? When you can smell the damp soil next to your face, or whilst the bitter water rages rather than ripples?

Scaling tree roots, reminiscent of clambering youth. Going weightless against the trunk, resting your face against bark, and breathing out. Closing your eyes a la hide-and-seek. Focusing on the texture; the sheer of the Beech or an Oak’s gnarled rivers. Smelling earthy Moss and Fungi that exist in symbiosis. Looking skyward through dappled light and leaves, feeling small, realising nothing else in that moment really matters much at all.

Try it. You’ll look weird, but I reckon you’ll like it.

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