Green Brothers and Sisters

Trees

“It's been proven by quite a few studies that plants are good for our psychological development. If you green an area, the crime rate goes down. Torture victims begin to recover when they spend time outside in a garden with flowers. So, we need them in some deep psychological sense, which I don't suppose anybody really understands yet.”

Jane Goodall

There will be less than spectacular fall color this year in Birmingham, AL. We had a wet spring and early summer, but beginning in July, the rain stopped and the temperature went up. When it's this hot (90-98 degrees) for this long, you just can't water enough to keep things hydrated. The leaves are already beginning to droop. If you've never been to Birmingham, it's not like you might imagine. It's green, with lots of old long-leaf pine and hardwood trees down sloping valleys and topping a series of ridges—the tail-end of the Appalachian mountains. (People here call them mountains, but truly, they are sandstone ridges.) The first time I came to this part of Alabama in the late 1970's, the coal fired power plants and steel mills spewed out so much ash and smoke that the city was covered by a black cloud. It reminded me of Mordor in Lord of the Rings. All of that is gone now.

I think the deep green of the trees in the river bottoms and on the “mountains” keep us from killing each other at an alarming rate—they calm us when the heat has penetrated and commandeered our brains. If you want to experience how heat breeds violence, spend a red-hot summer in New York City. When the heat rises, the streets get mean. Too much concrete and asphalt, too few trees. Green is a “cool” color; we experience it as cooling even when the temperature is 98 with equally high humidity. I give the trees credit for standing between us and the world's worst homicide rate.

If you haven't appreciated a tree lately, it's not too late. We old hippies used to hug trees just on principle; now we need to do it in self-defense. Go outside and thank your green brothers and sisters for protecting your psychological well-being and give 'em a little love. If your neighborhood is anything like mine, they were here long before we humans, and they'll likely be here when we're gone. As elders, they deserve respect.

                                                   In the Spirit,

                                                       Jane