Two Cups of Tea at Hope’s Café
This week I encountered the Japanese word “komorebi,” translated “sunlight leaking through trees. Trees and sunlight are essential to wellbeing in my estimation. This “komorebi” encounter prompted further exploration. The Japanese have no corner on descriptive words for this phenomenon. The Germans have several related words :waldicht, referring to light found inside a forest; “lichtspiel,” the shifting, dancing patterns of light and shadow;” maeinschein,” a rare, poetic term describing the specific green-gold light falling through fresh spring trees. In English we are more likely to hear the term “dappled,” the spotty light on the ground. “Shivelight,” a less frequently used description, penned by Gerard Manley Hopkins in 1888 means “lances of light that pierce a tree’s canopy or foliage.”
No descriptors adequately convey the experience of witnessing the light filtering down through the leaves, the interplay of sunlight and shadow on the carpet of forest or lawn. That experience is matched by the amazing way trees “cooperate.” The leaves act as “solar panels” filled with chlorophyll to catch sunlight; the roots pull water up from the ground; the stomata (tiny pores) let the tree breathe in carbon dioxide from the air. The sun’s energy fuses water and carbon dioxide into glucose, giving the tree fuel to grow tall, to make new leaves and build wood. The trees release extra oxygen back into the air for humans and animals to breathe.
Trees store winter energy as starch in their roots and trunks before the cold weather sets in. And what I find so extraordinary is their capacity to communicate with other trees through a fungal network in the soil, often called the “world wide web,” by which they can send nutrients and chemical signals to help each other survive. They even warn each other about pests!
The importance of trees is reflected in the 3-30-300 rule in urban forestry. This serves as a guideline to ensure that every resident can see at least 3 mature trees, live in a neighborhood with 30 percent tree canopy cover, and be within 300 meters of a high quality green space.
Trees remind us again of some of the very fundamentals of life: they communicate and cooperate for the good of all. What a powerful comfort it is to know that even when their leaves drop as winter descends, to all appearances hopeless for life to return, much life-sustaining activity upholds them, carries them through the colder, darker times. For this reason, in this gloomy, somber, shadowy time in our world, again and again I return to the lessons from these stalwart servants of our wellbeing.
The invitation is open to share two cups of tea anytime at Hope’s Café or anywhere you share companionship and conversation.
May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” at Hope’s Café, for each other and all those we encounter. Shalom, Kate
Hope's Cafe 