Mighty Oaks
There is simply nothing like the aroma and warmth of bourbon by a hearty fire on a crisp, cold winter evening. I settled in with a glass as the winds blew in hard from the north and the rain began to fall in waves. A splintering crack, like a close rifle report, caught my ear. As I peered into the darkening woodland out my window, I saw the source of the sound. A towering mighty oak, one I’ve admired for so many years, was straining into the howling gusts…but to no avail. The trunk began to twist and burst with the tension; the canopy began to shudder, and the bohemoth tree fell on its side. The thunder of the fall sent shock waves through the earth and a shudder in my chest. The beloved oak had fallen—never to rise again.
A few years later, I walked among the mangled limbs scattered on the ground. Most had broken away from the main trunk, transitioning into a decadent refuge to beetles, centipedes, spiders, salamanders, a coral snake or two, and a whole potpourri of various lifeforms. Where a cathedral of green had once filled the sky, there were now clouds and sunshine. As I examined the sunlit ground, I noticed dozens upon dozens of the mighty oak’s offspring, grabbing sunlight where for a century or more, there resided only a handful of shade-loving stems, scavenging drops of sunlight beneath the canopy . And now? Young ash, elm, mulberry, hickory , grasses, and wildflowers, and butterflies, and birds… All of them dancing center stage in the only spot now freely illuminated by the Sun. Here now was a new bustling community of life, more diverse than before.
In truth, the oak had been dying for years before it finally fell, and the ground beneath the drip line of his expansive canopy had been starved of resources sequestered by the leaves above and the extensive catchment of roots woven beneath the soil’s surface. Most of the energy in this microcosm was bound up within this monstrous frame and useful to support its own sheer mass; but..and this is the point… to the deteriment of the next generation. So long as the oak consumed the lion’s share of life’s essentials (sunlight, water, and soil nutrients), the offspring and any other species below had very little to live on. What had survived was stunted, immature, and undeveloped above ground, but with immense potential yet to be seen in the roots below the soil surface. All that was needed was the reconstitution of the stored energy within the body of the monster oak itself back into the soil mixed with sunlight through the process of disruption—a cycle of life, death, decomposition, and life again.
I came to realize something important; something vitally important in my life. The perturbations or disturbances i experience ultimately make room for revitalization and renewal in my own soul—much like the renewal of the forest floor from the loss of my beloved mighty oak. Without disruption, I can become inert, inactive, homogenious, shady, comfortable, complacent, and yet still starved for the revitalization and reconstitution that big changes, big adventures, or big disruptions can bring.
Living forward with this knowledge requires that I release my desire to control circumstances, events, or outcomes beyond my actual reach and focus on controlling my response to change in wildly productive and healthy ways; even change that comes wrapped in tragedy or loss or disappointment—particularly change that comes wrapped in tragedy, loss, or disappointment. Many of life’s greatest moments and memories come as a result of unimagined futures set in motion by changes we wouldn’t have chosen.