TOUCH A TREE

This is known as the Stinton Oak and the original picture can be found Fred Hageneder's The Meaning of Trees.

I have no idea how old this great great grandfather tree is, or if it's still standing but it's home is/was Dorsetshire in England.

Dorset is that red spot on the map. Flat on the Channel. I wonder if you could see the water if you walked past the tree. Standing year after year, decade after decade, century after century. Bending with the channel gales. The tree was standing when the greatest fleet even assembled set out for Normandy. May have witnessed the running battle up the Channel as the little English ships danced around the lumbering Spanish Armada. It may have even been standing when William the Bastard invaded England from Normandy. Touch a tree and travel back in time.

Picture the great root system threaded deep into the earth. Roots touching other roots, roots touching the deep underground springs. Water seeping deeper and deeper into the rocks. Deep rocks speaking to the mantle, the mantle to the core. Touch a tree. Touch the world.