A couple of weeks ago, I had the honor of giving the keynote lecture at the Gandhi’s Global Legacy Student Awards ceremony at California State University, Fresno. The day after the lecture, my host drove me to the mountains. We reached the dizzying heights of 7,000 feet (my ears popped on the way down). Our goal? The giant sequoia trees. Though it was in the 70s in the valley, we drove, then walked, through snow and ice to see the trees. “Enter at your own risk,” said the national park ranger. “Four wheel drive engaged at all times. Do you have chains for your tires?” We did.
These giants grow in a narrow band on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at between 5,000 and 7,000 feet elevation. The big ones are 35 feet across, and 1,700 years old. Their bark can be three feet thick, and is impervious to fire. Over the centuries all these great tress have survived through forest fires. When surrounding vegetation is burned to the ground, the sequoias live. Your can see black scars on many off the trees where the fire tried but failed. A plaque in the grove (complete with picture of the happy loggers) narrates that it took two men nine days to fell a great tree. The wood could not be used. It's too brittle to make anything. Seventeen hundred years of life, then nine days of death. I was left wondering why.
These giants grow in a narrow band on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at between 5,000 and 7,000 feet elevation. The big ones are 35 feet across, and 1,700 years old. Their bark can be three feet thick, and is impervious to fire. Over the centuries all these great tress have survived through forest fires. When surrounding vegetation is burned to the ground, the sequoias live. Your can see black scars on many off the trees where the fire tried but failed. A plaque in the grove (complete with picture of the happy loggers) narrates that it took two men nine days to fell a great tree. The wood could not be used. It's too brittle to make anything. Seventeen hundred years of life, then nine days of death. I was left wondering why.
On my bucket list? I’d say so. But I wasn’t quite prepared for the personal impact. Freud called deep spiritual experiences "oceanic feelings." He confessed never to having had one himself, but believed that most people do, at some time in their lives. It’s quite common for people to have an “oceanic” experience looking at the myriad stars on a cloudless night, deep in the country, with no electric lights to compete with. I have felt that many times. But, to stand beside a tree that has been living and breathing since the Roman Emperor Constantine was a lad was, without exaggeration, overwhelming. It seemed to put much into perspective. Issues that seemed pressing in the valley, seemed insignificant in the sequoia grove. People, politics, the urgent issues of the day? As nothing!I tried to take photos, but the photos don’t do justice to the experience. I have tried to explain to friends what the trees are like, but that too is limited. Words point to the thing signified, but they are a poor substitute for the thing itself. Freud's oceanic feeling is direct. You can't have it for someone else. It is unmediated personal experience. It comes to you as a gift, and like the best gifts is unexpected, un-asked for. It leaves you in wonder beyond telling. Life in enriched, more full than before.
Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week for Christians, when Christians rehearse again the story of the final week of Jesus' life, his death and resurrection. Life and death. Death and life. In its telling, too, words point to that which is signified, to reality itself, beyond the immediate, pressing issues, and troubles of the everyday.
Be kind to yourself today,
+Ab. Andy