The Tree of Life
Listen: “Tree of Life” by Nefesh Mountian (Live at the Station Inn)
Trees have always fascinated me. As a boy I was always wanting to play, climb and explore in the trees and woods of Missouri—her maples, oaks, hackberries, black locusts, mulberries, elms, willows, cottonwoods, and redbuds. As a young adult I fell in love with the Lodgepole pine and Aspen tree forests of the Rocky Mountains. This past week I fell in love with the African Baobab tree. (See https://spiritualityadventures.com/blog/what-do-trees-teach-us-about-the-dangers-of-isolation for additional insights from trees.)
While visiting Ethiopia, with the dollar so strong in Africa, I decided to take a short trip to Kenya. My first visit to this beautiful country. I was able to spend some time on the white sand beaches of Diani on the Indian Ocean and see some magnificent wildlife in the Serengeti plains of Kenya. But more than the elephants, baboons, giraffes, antelopes and tigers, it was a tree that captured my attention the most—the Baobab tree.
Africans call the Baobab tree “The Tree of Life” or “The Upside Down Tree.” For all of you Stranger Things fans, the branches of the Baobab tree look like an underground root system which has inspired many legends and myths in the ancient African lore about “The Upside Down Tree.” However, the caption “The Tree of Life” is well deserved. This tree can teach us how to live a spiritually connected life dedicated to love and beauty. The tree is indigenous to the African savanna, Madagascar and Australia and can live to be several thousand years old.
The Baobab tree is capable of providing shelter, food and water for the many life forms which inhabit the African savannah regions. Here are a few of characteristics of the tree:
The cork-like bark is fire resistant and is used for fiber, cloth and rope.
The leaves are edible, eaten as condiments and used as medicine.
The fruit looks like an oval coconut which is eaten and used to make drinks. It has twice as much calcium as milk and is high in anti-oxidants, iron, potassium and has six times the vitamin C of an orange. The fruit seeds are used for oil, cosmetics and moisturizer.
The bulbous, succulent trunk conducts and stores water and minerals. During the rainy season the Baobab tree stores hundreds of liters of water which is tapped in the dry season and allows it to produce its fruit in the dry season.
The reproductive flowers open at dusk and fade by the next morning.
Through the Baobab tree we learn the value of self-giving love. The tree offers over 300 life-sustaining benefits and is fundamental to the entire dry African savanna ecosystem, keeping soil conditions humid, aiding nutrient recycling and slowing soil erosion with their massive root systems.
How blessed is the person who delights in the beauty of nature, who meditates day and night upon her self-giving love, and who patterns oneself after her life-giving ways. By following her ways we can be a blessing to the ecosystem in which we are planted.
Here’s a thought. Have a brain-storming session and come up with 101 ways to show kindness to the people, the life-forms and the planet with which you co-habitat. Think about ways you can show love and kindness with no strings attached. You might start a garden, plant a tree, rescue a kitten, write a song, sponsor a student, feed the birds, paint a picture, say a kind word, serve at a food pantry, give a gift, affirm someone, hug someone, spend twenty minutes meditating in nature, practice self-compassion, listen to a friend or show hospitality to a stranger.
Be creative, spontaneous and daily seek to practice life-giving ways of showing love and creating beauty. Like the Baobab tree: absorb life-giving water, provide food for the hungry, produce fruit in the dry seasons, and bloom in the night. It’s like classical, ancient metaphors—living water, bread of life, fruit of the vine, and rose of Sharon—all wrapped up in one magnificent tree: The Tree of Life!
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2022
