No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree
which struggled to reach the sky. It was the only tree that grew out of cement.
"If there was only one tree like that in the
world, you would think it was beautiful,” said Katie. “But because there are so
many, you just can’t see how beautiful it really is."
Let me be something every minute of every hour
of my life... And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little
piece of living is ever lost.
- Betty Smith, A
Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Well, this amazing semi-autobiographical novel
titled, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by
Betty Smith is such a richly evocative read that portrays in such wondrous
lines, the vibrancy and the dynamism of a 11-yr-old girl by name Francie Nolan.
Though this little girl Francie is from a highly
impoverished family, her imagination, her passionate love for reading and her
abundant zest for life have given her that much-needed ‘flights of fantasy’ on
the ‘viewless wings of poesy’ and her solace and sustenance for life and living
as well!
The book has a whopping 500-plus pages but
yesss! each page has something new to offer to the reader! Be it some new
thought, or some new idea! or some new concept or some new precept to life and
living.
What appeals to us most about the book is the
powerful image of the ‘Tree of Heaven’ that occurs in the very first chapter at
that!
This ‘Tree of Heaven’ which is commonly known as
the Ailanthus tree, is a rich mirror or rather a metaphor to Francie, the
little girl.
The tree was
widely planted in urban townships and sprawling cities all over, not only for
its ornamental appeal, but also because it was able to tolerate extremely poor
soil conditions!
It could even grow and thrive in cement cracks!
This said, now to a little snippet on this ‘tree
of heaven’ for us all, from the novel –
The one tree in Francie’s yard was neither a
pine nor a hemlock. It had pointed leaves which grew along green switches which
radiated from the bough and made a tree which looked like a lot of opened green
umbrellas. Some people called it the Tree of Heaven.
No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree
which struggled to reach the sky. It grew in boarded-up lots and out of
neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It
grew lushly, but only in the tenements districts.
You took a walk on a Sunday afternoon and came
to a nice neighborhood, very refined. You saw a small one of these trees
through the iron gate leading to someone’s yard and you knew that soon that
section of Brooklyn would get to be a tenement district.
The tree knew. It came there first. Afterwards,
poor foreigners seeped in and the quiet old brownstone houses were hacked up
into flats, feather beds were pushed out on the window sills to air and the
Tree of Heaven flourished. That was the kind of tree it was. It liked poor
people.
That was the kind of tree in Francie’s yard. Its
umbrellas curled over, around and under her third-floor fire escape. An
eleven-year-old girl sitting on this fire escape could imagine that she was
living in a tree.
That’s what Francie imagined every Saturday
afternoon in summer.
This relationship that exists between Francie
and the tree is on a symbolic vein though! However, Jidduji discourses to us
all on how we could establish a harmonious interconnectedness between trees and
humans on the physical plane too!
I quote Jidduji, who interestingly talks about a
blade of grass that pushes through the cement!
Jidduji speaks -
There is a tree by the river and we have been
watching it day after day for several weeks when the sun is about to rise. As
the sun rises slowly over the horizon, over the trees, this particular tree becomes
all of a sudden golden.
All the leaves are bright with life and as you
watch it as the hours pass by, that tree whose name does not matter - what
matters is that beautiful tree - an extraordinary quality seems to spread all over
the land, over the river.
By midday its shadow has deepened and you can
sit there protected from the sun, never feeling lonely, with the tree as your
companion. As you sit there, there is a relationship of deep abiding security
and a freedom that only trees can know.
If you establish a relationship with it then you
have relationship with mankind. You are responsible then for that tree and for
the trees of the world. But if you have no relationship with the living things
on this earth you may lose whatever relationship you have with humanity, with
human beings.
We never look deeply into the quality of a tree;
we never really touch it, feel its solidity, its rough bark, and hear the sound
that is part of the tree. Not the sound of wind through the leaves, not the
breeze of a morning that flutters the leaves, but its own sound, the sound of
the trunk and the silent sound of the roots.
You must be extraordinarily sensitive to hear
the sound. This sound is not the noise of the world, not the noise of the
chattering of the mind, not the vulgarity of human quarrels and human warfare
but sound as part of the universe.
It is odd that we have so little relationship
with nature, with the insects and the leaping frog and the owl that hoots among
the hills calling for its mate.
We never seem to have a feeling for all living
things on the earth. If we could establish a deep abiding relationship with
nature we would never kill an animal for our appetite, we would never harm,
vivisect, a monkey, a dog, a guinea pig for our benefit.
We would find other ways to heal our wounds,
heal our bodies. But the healing of the mind is something totally different.
That healing gradually takes place if you are with nature, with that orange on
the tree, and the blade of grass that pushes through the cement, and the hills covered,
hidden, by the clouds.
This is not sentiment or romantic imagination
but a reality of a relationship with everything that lives and moves on the
earth.
How much of eco-wisdom we learn from these
mighty lines of Jidduji!
So yesss! Why wait?
Let’s take an effective resolve to ourselves,
rightaway at that, to take some little time off, from our busy, busier, busiest schedules, to see, and to admire, to adore
and to appreciate the beautiful aspects of our interconnectedness with all
other species on this planet, the beautiful flora and the majestic fauna, while
at the same time learning the amazing art of resilience and perseverance from
the ailanthus or the Tree of Heaven and from Francie herself, who symbolizes the
ailanthus to a tee!
images: rarebookcellardotcom, pexelsdotcom
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