On Monday we walked to Washington Square Park to see the ancient English Elm at its northwest corner - subject of most of these drawings. At over 330 years, it's known as the oldest tree in Manhattan, though the heart sorrows at the thought of all the trees which predated it. (It's not a native tree, of course.) Students weren't sure how to respond to it, and it didn't help when I said we'd be drawing - precisely to go places words may not be able to. Tree Wonder's sketches relieved the pressure, both with the variety of skill levels, and with the reassuring reminder that everyone notices different things. (The children's drawings are especially fetching!) Perfect companion to an essay by Robin Wall Kimmerer calling us to overcome "plant blindness" and "plant deafness."
"People knew the trees were story tellers. But then we forgot. Or were made to forget by the ones who chased divinity out of the forest and forced it into the sky." Religion of Trees, anyone?
Robin Wall Kimmerer, "White Pine," in The Mind of Trees, 423-31, 425
