A cold, steady, early morning March rain is helping to settle in the roots of this Korean Fir tree I planted Sunday afternoon: The Fifth Sunday in Lent. It's good to plant a tree on a Sunday: anticipating Easter, day or re-creation.
Its Latin botanical name is Abies Koreana. Mature Korean firs produce brilliant, purple-blue cones, sitting upright on the tips of branches. The winged seeds first appear as yellow touches on the cones, set against soft, shiny green needles. What an imagination brought these trees into existence.
These trees are native to the high mountains of South Korea including Jejudo Island which is in the news these days as a new and huge American naval base is being built there. The tree is already an endangered species, like seemingly everything else in nature.
People live on Jejudo with a long history of art, culture, faith, and sadness too, as upwards of 40,000 civilians were massacred there (April 3, 1948) under the auspices of the United Nations and the United States Military Administration, with Japanese involvement. Reports of this sad slaughter remained suppressed until 2003.
People live on Jejudo with a long history of art, culture, faith, and sadness too, as upwards of 40,000 civilians were massacred there (April 3, 1948) under the auspices of the United Nations and the United States Military Administration, with Japanese involvement. Reports of this sad slaughter remained suppressed until 2003.
We should be planting trees all over the world and not chopping them down, and tearing them up and dynamiting their earth-homes for more war-making.
In Germanic folklore, fir trees are symbols of life and light. Don't we need to keep the things of life and light up front each day? I must remember to go out back to visit this fir-seedling often, so the day's dead and dark news doesn't take me under.
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the Lord, for he comes,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with is truth.
Psalm 96: 11-13
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it!
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the Lord, for he comes,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with is truth.
Psalm 96: 11-13
