Losing My Mother Tree

We moved into our house a few days after the New Year in 2021. The Earth celebrated by raining for three weeks straight. There was no outside time, only inside time, and I watched Joon admire the rain drops from the window. Three days turned into six, and before we knew it, we woke up to alarming text messages from loved ones about the freeze in Texas. When the clouds finally cleared, and the sun peeked its way back into our world, I took Joon for our first walk in the neighborhood. A couple of blocks from home, we saw a beautiful tree in the middle of the sidewalk that stopped us right in our tracks…

I have a special relationship with the Juniper Tree. Some of you might know this if you are connected with me on my private page on Instagram, and I was waiting for a special occasion so I could take Joon to Austin, to the same spot I fell in love with Junipers in 2017.

So during my first stroll in the neighborhood with Joon when I saw a massive Juniper tree, I couldn’t believe myself!

She was majestically big. “Her branches surely reach heaven”, I thought as I looked up, trying to find the blue sky through her limbs. Her smell was wildly intoxicating, as if she exhaled the scent of fresh rain on fresh earth. I put my hand on her trunk and felt her pulsing presence. On the way back home, I couldn’t help myself. As we crossed her path again, I wrapped my arms around her old thick trunk and gave a little twig from the tree to my little Joonie as he curiously watched me from his stroller. And since then we have repeatedly done this, from his stroller days to now, with him running up to the tree and giving her a hug before I even ask him. The first time I remember telling him, “I’m saying thank you to this tree,” I said stepping back, and I did this every time we walked by her.

A few weeks later, I started reading “Finding The Mother Tree” by Suzanne Simard, an ecologist who writes about Tree Wisdom, and explained the term “Mother Tree”. Her work scientifically proved what indigenous people have known for centuries; Trees are highly intelligent, and are a part of an interconnected community, protecting and guiding their own and other species. In a single forest, a Mother Tree is connected to hundreds of other trees. The mothers communicate with the young seedlings around them, share excess carbon and nitrogen when needed, and change their root structure to make room for the baby trees.

The first time I read the words “Mother Tree”, I immediately thought of the Juniper Tree near our house. She was a mother, a head of the tribe amongst giants. I had no language for her prior to this, no name to call her by, but every time I walked by her, I felt her Maternal Magic. I touched her branches and brought some of her warmth home by collecting her beautiful little twigs.

And then last week, I walked by her and stopped to give her another hug, this time a little longer…she is dying…branches falling off, most of her is already gone and now they are cutting her down. All of her.

Joon and I hugged her a little too tight and I whispered,

“You are magical, I will always remember you..”

Love & Light

Payal