Blog 433 – 10.13.2016

I saw this tree house near a job site recently that brought back a lot of pleasant memories of tree houses I have seen, known, read about and even sung about in my life. A favorite song says, “We built a tree house in a place we’d found. It seemed so far away but it was still in town. I remember watching that ole tree burn down. I took a picture that I don’t like to look at.” Most of us have at least one pleasant memory of a childhood tree house or of climbing a tree and imagining that we could live there.

Trees are among the oldest living creatures on this planet. I say that in the spirit of The First Peoples who believed and taught as Pocahontas sang in the Disney animated movie by the same name in the song Colors Of The Wind that “Every rock, and tree, and creature has life, has a spirit, has a name.” In the beginning of that song she also sings, “You think the only people who are people are the people who think and act like you.” Trees know better and in trees we come closer to seeing what is real, what is true, and how connected we all truly are.

Tarzan had a fantastic tree house that I saw in Johnny Weissmuller movies on TV as a boy. The Swiss Family Robinson also had a great tree house. But whether the tree house is expansive or simple or even just and seat in the spreading climbs big enough to rest upon and view the wider world, a tree house is a magical place. Suspended somewhere between heaven and earth dreams seem more real as we defy ever so briefly the gravity of earth.

I have seen pictures of people spending great sums of money to have elaborate homes built in trees. People who except the evolutionary theory see our fondness of trees and desire to climb them and even live in them as a hereditary thing. The same could I suppose be said of our fondness for water. But this fascination with tree houses is passed from generation to generation as parents share their adventures in tree houses with their children.

I imagine a smaller, younger version of myself spending an autumn afternoon in my house in a tree dreaming of what my life would be. It is a pleasant thought and those are the ones we should choose and dwell on for our thoughts indeed do become things and our lives are the sum total of the thoughts we have nurtured the most. Today I am thinking of tree houses and all the fun travels and adventures I dreamed of in such lofty perches. I vividly remember the last time I climbed high into the small branches of a tree to see as far as I could see. What a wonderful view.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

Lover of trees and tree houses.