The Festival of Trees, Inspiration

Trees are a source of inspiration, not only for writers and other artists, but all living creatures (you know, that stuff we breathe and all).

The Festival of Trees is a monthly blog carnival for all things arboreal. July’s is hosted by Yvonne Osborne of The Organic Writer blog. Please click here to read the other posts (I think they'll be up on the 1st), and click on the button to the right for the ongoing festival.

What would literature be like without trees? In Star Wars, there would be no Chewie, and no Wookies, no ferocious warriors living in the tree tops of Kashyyyk. The Rebellion would’ve fallen flat without the tree-dwelling Ewoks on Endor and Han and Leia would never have survived to get married and have Jedi babies.

Pandora would be a soul-less moon without the Hometree or the Tree of Voices or Tree of Souls and Jake Sully would still be a bitter, crippled human with no redemption.

Without the Ents, Middle Earth would have been destroyed by Sauron and Saruman and the story would have ended then and there. Frodo would not have made it to the Crack of Doom and Aragorn would still be Strider.

Would Ashley Wilkes’ beloved Twelve Oaks be known as Twelve Cotton Plants? And where would the Swiss Family Robinson have lived? Paul Bunyon would have had no origins and Johnny Appleseed no purpose without trees.

I grew up in the woods of rural Georgia, spending hours in the mimosa trees in our front yard. I played Barbie, read books and perfected my own brand of aerial acrobatics. The sweet aroma of their soft and delicate pink blossoms still invokes memories of lazy summers spent in their boughs.

Once I climbed to the top of a young sweet gum tree because I longed to know what it felt like to sway in the wind. It was utterly divine, yet slightly terrifying.

Today I live in a mountain cabin with a forest as my backyard. The susurration of the wind in the hardwoods is the closest I now get to the ocean and to home.

I haven’t climbed a tree in a very long time and, until I wrote this post I had forgotten what it feels like to spend time up there. Thank you, Yvonne, for reminding me.

And to quote Joyce Kilmer's immortal line, I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.

P.S. I have an award to accept from Suzie over at the Writer Junkie blog, be on the lookout for some link love coming your way soon. Thanks, Suzie!

Pictures from top to bottom: leaning California oak taken in Oak Canyon Park, Oak Park, CA; the morning sun reflecting on our back yard on New Hope Circle, Dawsonville, GA; Falcon Heights in Big Canoe, GA, after a rain storm; clouds after a fall storm taken through a red plum in Oak Park, CA.