Every Tree Speaks To Me!
Last week I suddenly realised that the trees were trying to speak to me. It appears I am not alone in my arboreal conversations...
Last week I suddenly realised that the trees were trying to speak to me. I mean, I had noticed for some time now, but last week I really started to listen. Their stark naked branches would reach out as I walked by, they’d pull my hair and scratch at my cheeks. ‘Alright already!’ I’d say, eyes closed, one ear pressed up to the bark.
Video: Mary O'Neill
Music: Procol Harum (1967). A Whiter Shade of Pale. Deram Records. (All Rights Reserved)
I’m not alone, it appears, in my arboreal⁺ conversations. Last month I listened to the Odyssey Festiva Orchestra perform ‘Every Tree Speaks To Me!’ at Cadogan Hall. The orchestra ‘challenges the conventions of the concert going experience’ by supplementing the show with readings, dancing and special effects which provide the often missing context of the music that is being performed. Artistically directed by composer Peter Ash, Every Tree Speaks To Me! took the audience on a journey through nature, told through the eyes of Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Wagner and Leoš Janáček. Poems were read aloud by Sir Thomas Allen and Roger McGough. My Merseyside ears were delighted by the latter.
One adores to look upon nature in spring, summer, and autumn, and feel its extraordinary impact in all of its life and glory. But so often, when the days get shorter and the nights grow longer, it fades into the background. Trees become a veiny wallpaper and cold rain floods and destroys. What better way to warm a cold winter’s eve than with the rich sounds of those who loved nature as I do. And better still, to remind us of the magnificence of mother earth even while she sleeps.
The buildings in which I live were carefully built around the ancient trees that already lived in the grounds. Like a whisper of a time now passed, where listening to the land came before any pursuit of man. The buildings are older now. As they near their 90th birthday, the roots of the trees that stood long before a single brick was laid have begun to reclaim the land around them. Walls start to crumble due to subsidence and immediately the finger is pointed at the suspects who can't speak our language, the trees. Surgeons pile in and mutilate their branches, ensuring no further growth. Frustrated investors cry that their once secure assets are losing value, and the trees are pulled down. To some, money is much easier to listen to than a tree.
Every morning when I wake I watch the remaining trees to deduce what kind of weather I should expect. They shake and I put on a big coat, they sway and I'll resort to a cardigan. Wisdom exudes from every pore of the giants that live amongst us, and we must listen; there's no time left to ignore.
'In the country, it seems as if every tree Said to me ‘Holy! Holy!’ Who can ever express The ecstasy of the woods! Almighty One, In the woods I am blessed. Happy every one in the woods. Every tree speaks through Thee. O God! What glory in the woodland.'
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 6
'Oh, this forest is so wonderful and green!
I hear it murmuring to me. Is it trying to tell me something?'
Richard Wagner
Libretto to Siegfried
⁺I have been desperate to use this word in a sentence since I read it in the latest issue of Weird Walk. Trees speak to those guys too.
Originally published January 2024 on maryoneill.co.uk