The silent narrative of trees

At 3.00pm on 13 December 2009, the World Council of Churches has called upon Christians around the world to ring their bells, blow their horns or beat their drums 350 times to alert world decision makers, meeting in Copenhagen, of the need to reduce CO2 levels. This 'bell ringing for climate justice' might signify the beginning of a more vocal, moral and even spiritual re-engagement of churches with the silent voice of nature.

As organic entities, trees remind us of the cyclical nature of existence, the seasons, renewal and growth. With their roots deep in the earth, their trunks reaching for the sky, and their branches brushing the heavens, trees are also natural enduring symbols linking physical and spiritual layers of awareness.

Whether as a Tree of Life, Sacred Tree or axis mundi representing a cosmic centre, trees in one form or another have often been recognised as powerful cosmological agents in many of the earth's myths, art, ritual and religious beliefs. From Celtic fertility maypoles to Lakota Indian sundance pillars; from the World Tree Yggdrasil (from which the Norse god Odin hung) to the very crucifix of Jesus Christ, trees have symbolic resonance and power.

Trees and forests can also define the borders of civilised and moral life. In both western and eastern cultures, from Scandinavian trolls and German forest witches to Japanese kami, elemental things live in forests, and wild, dangerous forces can lurk there.

Trees and forests have agency because they can create cognitive and subliminal landscapes in our minds which speak to our imagination and creativity as well as to our emotional and spiritual dimensions. But whether we perceive nature as a savage garden or as utopian Arcadian paradise really depends on what we have been conditioned to understand.

So, while forest dwelling peoples might perceive their forests as rich sources of sustenance and spiritual comfort, from a Judeo-Christian perspective, there is always 'risk' in nature. After all, even Satan's serpent managed to enter the Garden of Eden and threaten the perfection of paradise.

The point here is that in both biblical and other religious and mythological landscapes, trees have agency because their presence makes things happen or enables events to occur.

Many indigenous cultures, from the Shawi of the Peruvian Amazon to the Yarralin people of Australia's Northern Territory, don't differentiate between the natural world and themselves. For these animist societies, trees and other natural phenomena are not silent or mute, but are fully engaged as participants in the cultural and spiritual life of their communities, communicating directly or through a ritual specialist or shaman.

I argue that in 21st century industrial materialist economies such as our own, natural and human interactions have become disconnected and sanitised. Natural resources are exploited and any spiritual, dynamic or emotional empathy with trees and nature is trivialised and commodified. Being 'green' is largely reduced to marketing opportunities for 'green' petrol and unbleached toilet paper rather than leading to substantive responsible action.

If trees have lost some of their anthropomorphic and spiritual significance in the modern world, they have now taken on possibly even greater symbolic power as icons for the environment and the need to address issues of ecology and survival. As nature's emissaries, trees communicate to us existentially and symbolically, through what many hope is our growing appreciation and even fear of what it might mean should they all be lost.

Recently, the World Council of Churches announced an 'Interfaith Declaration on Climate Change' which recognises 'the science of climate change', and that it 'is not merely an economic or technical problem, but ... a moral, spiritual and cultural one'.

Religious institutions are beginning to realise that in order to stay relevant and contribute to a moral dynamic in environmental discourse, they need to become more reconciled with and engaged in issues of the natural world.

For those who hold a spiritual or religious faith, nature can provide authenticity to the spiritual life and to God. There is also a long tradition in the Abrahamic religions of perceiving the evidence of God's work and invisible hand in the natural world around us. So, from a religious point of view, it might be morally contingent upon us to do something proactively about respecting it.

However, it has taken the secularism of modern science and the contemporary environmental movement to re-awaken our consciousness, culpability and responsibility for the natural world in the current crisis. Hopefully, if secular, spiritual and religious forces can together learn to listen to the silent narrative of nature in general, and trees in particular, we might just be redeemed.

Thor Beowulf is a property developer turned environmental advocate. He is a first year PhD student at the Research School of Humanities at the Australian National University, Canberra. His thesis topic examines cross-cultural perceptions of art, aesthetics and nature between Asia and the West. This article was adapted from a paper given at last month's Monash University Religious Communication Conference.