Greetings …

                     The tree by my swing
                     Has green buds in spring
                     In summer it shades me
                     Cool from hot sun
                     Autumn sets my tree on fire –
                     Orange, crimson, golden glow
                     Winter winds bare its branches,
                     Makes them dark and dead in a row
                     Then comes spring
                     Buds by my swing.
                     (H Goodman – 1975)

It seems appropriate to re-share this poem because this Sunday, 31 July, is National Tree Day.  Established in 1996 by Planet Ark, National Tree Day has grown into Australia’s largest community tree-planting and nature care event.  According to the Planet Ark website “it’s a call to action for all Australians to get their hands dirty and give back to their community.”

Of course planting trees is good for many reasons – they are natural carbon sequesters (absorbing and capturing carbon from the atmosphere) as well as being good for our health and well-being. They provide shelter and food and the timber they produce is an environmentally friendly, carbon storing, renewable resource.  But for me there is something more to it …

I think the day can also be about recognising the wonder of creation and the call on us to be good stewards of it.  Each week we acknowledge the custodianship of the First Peoples, and caring for our environment is something that might take us a small way into understanding this custodianship and care of the land.

It is true that I never planted ‘the tree by my swing’, a huge liquid amber that already towered over me when I was small, but someone did and by doing so provided shelter for birds, and also for me, my sister and the children of the family who live in that place now.

Blessings – Heather.