Did you know that there is no species or genus for trees. The grass, the weed, the creeper and the shrub, they all independently worked towards becoming a tree, and it worked. So we see them together as trees. There is no class of trees.
Trees are the “rich and successful” of the evolutionary game.
tom, you're killing it brother. absolutely loving all your writing lately! ill recommend a cool novel called The Overstory, if you haven't read it. a few intertwined stories all based around trees and their communicative nature. fun and entertaining, but also carries a thread of the wonder of this post.
Tom, your essay reminded me of something Thich Nhat Hanh once wrote:
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.”
The more time I spend among Sierra Junipers, the more I believe him.
It’s easier for someone to imagine the branches of a Juniper reaching out to embrace them than it is to imagine one and two not making three.
Junipers don’t race skyward like Redwoods. They don’t celebrate spring with blossoms or set mountainsides ablaze with autumn color.
Instead, they endure.
Year after year. Century after century. They accept whatever the mountain offers—wind, snow, lightning, drought, thin soil, and relentless exposure. They bend without breaking, twist without surrendering, and age with remarkable dignity.
Their beauty isn’t immediate. You have to slow down, look closer, and let your mind whirl a little.
As you mentioned, wonder isn’t found only in the extraordinary. More often, it’s waiting inside ordinary things that we’ve never taken the time to truly see.
That thought became the heart of an essay I wrote called “A Manifesto of Wonder.” You might enjoy this companion reflection:
Perhaps the deeper illusion is the distinction itself. Language divides experience into the “ordinary” and the “extraordinary,” but reality makes no such separation. There is only what is. Wonder isn’t something added to certain moments; it’s what remains when conditioning and labels fall away.
When Aldous Huxley emerged from his mescaline experience, he kept asking, “Isn’t everything extraordinary?” It wasn’t that the world had become extraordinary. It was that the ordinary had disappeared.
Tom, I love that perspective. I suspect children don’t experience that distinction at all, since their language is so limited. Everything is extraordinary until familiarity (and unfortunately, much of our educational system) teaches them otherwise. Maybe the work of a lifetime isn’t discovering wonder, but recovering it.
So my wife’s aunt went to visit her sister. Both are in their 80s. At the top of an airport escalator, she fell and broke her arm. Instead of going to her sister my wife took her to the hospital. She will be flying home without visiting her sister and she will likely never be in a condition to visit her sister again.
The miracle of the moment is that it doesn’t last.
And then we are all 80 at the top of an escalator.
I am trying to acknowledge those trees while I can.
Thank you for sharing that story, Mark. It makes me sad. I hope your wife’s aunt recovers well, and I’m grateful that you captured the heart of what I was trying to say in such a moving, personal way.
Wonder is wonderful.
Did you know that there is no species or genus for trees. The grass, the weed, the creeper and the shrub, they all independently worked towards becoming a tree, and it worked. So we see them together as trees. There is no class of trees.
Trees are the “rich and successful” of the evolutionary game.
tom, you're killing it brother. absolutely loving all your writing lately! ill recommend a cool novel called The Overstory, if you haven't read it. a few intertwined stories all based around trees and their communicative nature. fun and entertaining, but also carries a thread of the wonder of this post.
Thanks brother! And yes, that’s a wonderful book.
Tom, your essay reminded me of something Thich Nhat Hanh once wrote:
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.”
The more time I spend among Sierra Junipers, the more I believe him.
It’s easier for someone to imagine the branches of a Juniper reaching out to embrace them than it is to imagine one and two not making three.
Junipers don’t race skyward like Redwoods. They don’t celebrate spring with blossoms or set mountainsides ablaze with autumn color.
Instead, they endure.
Year after year. Century after century. They accept whatever the mountain offers—wind, snow, lightning, drought, thin soil, and relentless exposure. They bend without breaking, twist without surrendering, and age with remarkable dignity.
Their beauty isn’t immediate. You have to slow down, look closer, and let your mind whirl a little.
As you mentioned, wonder isn’t found only in the extraordinary. More often, it’s waiting inside ordinary things that we’ve never taken the time to truly see.
That thought became the heart of an essay I wrote called “A Manifesto of Wonder.” You might enjoy this companion reflection:
https://www.bluewolfgallery.com/post/a-manifesto-of-wonder
Thank you, Michael. I’ll check it out.
Perhaps the deeper illusion is the distinction itself. Language divides experience into the “ordinary” and the “extraordinary,” but reality makes no such separation. There is only what is. Wonder isn’t something added to certain moments; it’s what remains when conditioning and labels fall away.
When Aldous Huxley emerged from his mescaline experience, he kept asking, “Isn’t everything extraordinary?” It wasn’t that the world had become extraordinary. It was that the ordinary had disappeared.
Tom, I love that perspective. I suspect children don’t experience that distinction at all, since their language is so limited. Everything is extraordinary until familiarity (and unfortunately, much of our educational system) teaches them otherwise. Maybe the work of a lifetime isn’t discovering wonder, but recovering it.
So my wife’s aunt went to visit her sister. Both are in their 80s. At the top of an airport escalator, she fell and broke her arm. Instead of going to her sister my wife took her to the hospital. She will be flying home without visiting her sister and she will likely never be in a condition to visit her sister again.
The miracle of the moment is that it doesn’t last.
And then we are all 80 at the top of an escalator.
I am trying to acknowledge those trees while I can.
Thanks Tom.
Zoom soon I hope!
“we are all 80 at the top of the escalator.”
Thank you for sharing that story, Mark. It makes me sad. I hope your wife’s aunt recovers well, and I’m grateful that you captured the heart of what I was trying to say in such a moving, personal way.
And yes… Zoom soon!