On the first morning of our holiday, we walked a winding route through woods to the sea. Returning a few hours later, the same path was blocked by the carcass of a huge ivy-swathed Scots pine. While we’d been lucky to miss the drama of its falling by a few hours or minutes, it had ripped limbs from neighbouring trees, crushed, smashed, uprooted other plants, and no doubt terrified every sentient creature in earshot.
A moment of seismic disruption – but only destructive if you consider that moment in isolation. Wait a year or 10, and we might see that tree sustain as many lives and connections in death as it did in life. Our inclination is to look for conclusions, and seeing the bigger picture doesn’t always come naturally. It takes practice to encounter a river and intuit an ocean, a spring or a rainshower.
