The Radical Healing Power of Our Standing Trees

Health is holistic--all functions of your body, both mental and physical, need to be in harmony for it to be achieved. Different actions are required to keep different parts of your body and mind well, and they need to keep being performed for health to be maintained. When you’re sick or injured, there’s a whole new set of actions you need to take to become healthy again. 

While we’re healing, we understand that some actions we do today will help us feel better immediately, while others won’t have an effect until days, weeks, or even months later--the healing process is sometimes slow and can never be rushed.  Sometimes we also start taking new actions that are about preventing similar injuries or illnesses from happening again in the future; it’s long-term, preventative thinking. We don’t want to repeat our experience being unwell. 

In a way, our community can be thought of as a body. Like a body, our communities are also composed of countless interdependent pieces and processes that nonetheless all impact the well-being of the whole. Smaller parts within our community body include safety, public schools, non-profits, faith groups, local government, neighbors, shared cultural traditions, businesses, parks, water and air quality, etc. Keeping each part healthy is an essential process unto itself, with its own set of actions and required inputs. 

Within our environmental organ, trees are like white blood cells. Trees do a lot to fight off threats that would otherwise overwhelm us. They help mitigate heat, naturally filter water, reduce air pollution, keep precious soil in place, and reduce stress. When a body is sick, white blood cell counts multiply at a faster rate to help fight the danger. Planting trees is like multiplying white blood cells, with a special eye towards our future health. Maintaining our existing trees is like keeping our white blood cell factories open and functional (those factories=your bone marrow!). Their survival creates the conditions for successfully fighting off infections and returning the organ to a state of health. But by extension, healing the organ also helps heal the body. 

The body of our community holds ourselves, our loved ones, people who live down the street or who we see in the local library, and many others you may never meet. This is why caring for and planting trees, even when done individually, is a collective action--we’re all part of the communities we’re helping to heal when we do so. We’re all part of the same body; let’s heal it together.