The story of the tree

"Trees often have more years in their lives than people. Provided, of course, that they have been allowed to grow freely and are not trees from commercial forests that resemble fur animals in cages. When a tree that has been planted has grown to its size, it is cut down and a new sapling is planted in its place. And the same planting starts all over again .

That's why I want to talk about other trees, real and real, growing freely in nature on their own: wild, strange, personal. From the forest that breathes life and sighs in the wind like a person. From the forest where mushrooms and berries grow; from the forest, which is the home and shelter of all kinds of birds and animals. From the forest, which is also suitable for humans. "The forest protects its sons", Aleksis Kivi already wrote and managed to create a foster home for the brothers there.

Many old trees in the old forest would surely have a lot to tell, we just rarely understand the trees' speech so far. They do not form words and sentences per se, but feelings. It depends on the listener and the viewer what kind of stories he hears from the trees while walking by and among them.

Our oldest trees in Finland have watched the development of people here for many hundreds of years. Even thousands in the world. It is an achievement that a person will never reach. Cedars of Lebanon already lived in the Bible; In America, Redwoods can also become two thousand years old. In Italy, the oldest olive trees of the same age are still producing, even though time has twisted their trunks into hundreds of bends and they are full of holes. An achievement I would take my hat off to if I had one.

Many cut down trees out of sadness, even though they are also the lungs of humanity, giving us oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide. Plant many trees, if you have to cut one down, it could be a law even in the Amazon region, but no. Compared to trees, man is still only a selfish animal, whose understanding of nature and life becomes more and more difficult to develop as the population grows. Eat or be eaten is an old law of wild animals, which seems to also apply to trees today, which are sadly cut down everywhere in the rain forests.

Of course I realize that we need wood for building and making paper and also as a source of heat; after all, our house also has a courtyard sauna with a wood stove and a big oven to protect against the cold in winter. Today, wood is also being developed as a substitute for plastic and who knows what. Apparently, machines can be made from wood, but increasing the use of raw materials only feels good if the cutting of trees takes place within the limits of natural growth.

Calm the forest and you calm your soul. Plant a tree, and you will do good and future-oriented work. We could ask for everything like this, but few requests are answered. But you should answer. A tree grows to its length in the south in maybe 40 years, in the north it doubles that. A chainsaw will cut it down in a few minutes – or less, depending on the thickness of the frame. This alone would be enough to think about.

Every person who likes the old forest probably has his favorite tree and species. I have always liked pine trees myself, there were them on the rock of summer island in my childhood. In his poem, Haavikko wrote as if sparingly: "Pine is a beautiful tree", but a more poetic continuation of the statement certainly followed. For Gallen-Kallela, the pine tree shone in the forest, as I remember it: "Hell, red". This Gallen explained to Leino in exasperation; maybe the gentlemen were also in their little heads. Let it rain. After all, it was about admiring Finland's unique nature and quality.

To me, the most beloved pine is an ancient and twisted one, one that has life left only in the crown and that often stands alone exposed to every wind and wind that it has had to endure for centuries.

It reminds me of Pekka Halonen's money tree, which grew in Halosenniemi and which Halonen always painted when he was short of money, so that a large family could quickly get a bunch of food to buy; with wooden boards, when there was a certain success. The children called it the million pine. Halonen's old money tree has already fallen, but at the tip of the cape, an almost similar one is growing again; heir. Take a look and stop by the house to admire its fine art.

There are similar old gnarled pines here and there in Finland. Here, one clone of the money tree grows next to Pusulantie, in the place where the road also leads from Saukkola and continues from there to Karkkila. I've been watching that old man for almost 40 years and even though it always seems like it's about to die, a part of it is still alive. I would guess that the tree is at least a couple of hundred years old, maybe even more. However, that can only be found out when the tree dies and is felled and chopped and the annual rings are counted. Fortunately, it's not that time yet.

The places where such pine trees grow are actually often difficult. There is little soil, the roots have had to be pushed into some crevices and holes in the rock. So does scarcity give a longer life than abundant black earth? Perhaps. Paavola's approximately 600-year-old oak tree is an example of that too; a huge oak tree grows on top of a rock, but already at the beginning of Agricola's time, it has spread its roots into the surrounding meadow. The goodness of scarcity or moderation could also apply to humans, as long as they find something to eat. Lovers of fat buffets often outshine their thinner companions earlier.

Conifers are evergreen and maybe that's why I like them. The fir tree, on the other hand, is not, if it is exactly that the book printers who arrived from the south love and tear to the horror and death of fir trees. Spruce is also a tree that can grow in the shade of other trees, but when it gets big, it shades the trees of others so that it ends up like that; the saplings that fall under the spruce will suffocate. Spruce trees are the bandits of the forests, rightfully so. But the narrow fir trees in the brooding place are again sad and sophisticated - like messages towards the sky.

And what about the juniper, that noble juniper! Here we have them, old and sturdy, growing almost everywhere. Our oldest juniper is also almost six hundred years old (expert's estimate). It has been my favorite of all the trees on our hill, but it got a spore disease and only a couple of branches have volatile green at the top.

However, I don't rush to knock it down, I just let it be. Perhaps hops or wild wine could be planted at its base, which would, as it were, wrap that old man in their embrace and give it a new life. A symbolic thought, a metaphor that somehow also applies to me.

I also like larch trees even though they shed their needles. Mountain elm can also be found down there, lindens are the tree species surrounding the rock on our hill, which thrives because there are no worse competitors at the foot of the rock. Several of the linin trees are already well over a hundred years old and new growth is appearing everywhere. I don't regret it. Here, nature chooses and the forest takes care of itself, a couple of paths just have to be somehow kept in good condition, but that's all. And today it is also done by moose, deer and roe deer, which can also be seen enjoying themselves here.

Our place is nature's own arboretum, where I myself have brought and planted only a few new species; the hill is a rock, but still at the same time like a grove, because at the beginning of time it was driven from the lowland. An old Stone Age residence has been here as well, so life by us continues more or less the same as it was thousands of years ago when the development of technology is not taken into account. I believe that the ancestors of many of our tree species have lived here in peace with the Stone Age inhabitants, of course also giving them help when it was needed.

The life of a tree has already been long on Earth and will continue for a long time, unless humanity eventually knocks everything upside down like the Vikings did with the forests of Iceland, creating the current desolation there.

But I don't get sad yet, I think that deforestation will continue when humanity disappears or dramatically shrinks and declines (which is my dystopia). Always somewhere, some individual tree survives and seeds, just like maybe a human. And there is always a place somewhere where one of the seeds starts to grow into a new tree.

   With this thought, I return to something that has been left behind for some time . Please, read me was the first book I wrote as a freelance writer in January 1989. It was a fairy tale for children, but maybe also a story for adults. It described how a tree seed found a place to grow and grew as if it grew into a tree, and how its branches and leaves found and still can be read for anyone who is interested in it.

I, at least, still read not only books, but also trees; I read and love and listen to their stories too. Just as mushrooms cannot live without trees and trees cannot live without mycelium of fungi, so also the destinies of man and tree are seamlessly connected by invisible threads. For me, that idea has more than enough indication of what kind of actions are needed here in the world right now."