Have you loved a tree lately?

Right outside my window is a big oak tree – if this isn’t love I feel, it’s something positive. This tree is caring – for the squirrels and birds in its branches. And, I really do feel, my tree cares for me. Read on for some back up . . .

Tidball [Keith, a researcher and fellow at Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, who worked on the project] studied the effects of tree planting on traumatized residents in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He found the saplings became symbols of ecological and social renewal, a response to the narrative of New Orleans as a failed, broken city. The civilian acts of planting served as gathering opportunities, and the trees themselves became icons of resurrection.
“The loss of trees is a major heartbreak and disruptor,” he said, “so the act of stewarding them back is fundamental to recovery.” In a crisis, nature reminds us that we are not the center of everything, and also that we are all connected.
Often people don’t even realize how much they love and need the trees until they are gone. Tidball calls this yearning “Urgent biophilia,” and it was a phrase that kept coming back to me. We need the bosom of the natural world, and sometimes we need it now, and in every town and in every neighborhood. After heartbreak—whether over a devastated landscape or a personal loss or a global crisis like a pandemic—it is often the literal rootedness of things with roots.
“When you hurt, nature heals. . .” p 29

Florence Williams, Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey, Norton, 2022.

           Thank You for reading, JoAnnLordahl.com    

[My apologies: Reading, Writing currently consumes most of my dwindling energy.]

If you want to know more — **From Wikipedia: ”Biophilia” is an innate affinity of life or living systems. The term was first used by Erich Fromm to describe a psychological orientation of being attracted to all that is alive and vital.[5] Wilson uses the term in a related sense when he suggests that biophilia describes “the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life.” He proposed the possibility that the deep affiliations humans have with other life forms and nature as a whole are rooted in our biology. Both positive and negative (including phobic) affiliations toward natural objects (species, phenomenon) as compared to artificial objects are evidence for biophilia.

Although named by Fromm, the concept of biophilia has been proposed and defined many times over. Aristotle was one of many to put forward a concept that could be summarized as “love of life”. Diving into the term philia, or friendship, Aristotle evokes the idea of reciprocity and how friendships are beneficial to both parties in more than just one way, but especially in the way of happiness.[6]
The hypothesis has since been developed as part of theories of evolutionary psychology.[7] Taking on an evolutionary perspective people are drawn towards life and nature can be explained in part due to our evolutionary history of residing in natural environments, only recently in our history have we shifted towards an urbanized lifestyle.[7] These connections to nature can still be seen in people today as people gravitate towards, identify with, and desire to connect with nature.[8] These connections are not limited to any one component part of nature, as people show connections to a wide range of natural things including plants, animals, and environmental landscapes.[9] One possible explanation is that our ancestors who had stronger connections to nature would hold an evolutionary advantage over less connected people as they would have better knowledge and therefore access to food, water, and shelter. In a broader and more general sense research has suggested that our modern urban environments are not suited for minds that evolved in natural environments.[10]
Human preferences toward things in nature, while refined through experience and culture, are hypothetically the product of biological evolution. For example, adult mammals (especially humans) are generally attracted to baby mammal faces with their large eyes and rounded features and find them appealing across species. Similarly, the hypothesis helps explain why ordinary people care for and sometimes risk their lives to save domestic and wild animals, and keep plants and flowers in and around their homes. In the book Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigations edited by Peter Kahn and Stephen Kellert,[11] the importance of animals, especially those with which a child can develop a nurturing relationship, is emphasized particularly for early and middle childhood. The same book reports on the help that animals can provide to children with autistic-spectrum disorders.[12]