There’s a tall elm across the street from me that I’ve loved for many years. When I returned from a holiday in late September, I saw it had received the “red dot of death” –the city’s way of marking trees to be cut down because of Dutch Elm Disease.
For many reasons it saddened me, and I wanted to make some small gesture of support and celebration of the trees in my life. So I organized a party for the tree on November 3rd.
I should backtrack and explain that I’ve not always been a tree-party-organizer. For most of my life, trees were simply part of my background. I first really noticed the elm across the street one fall day in 2008 when the leaves on all the trees around me formed a thick carpet and I could discern its dancing shape through the leafless branches. Its branches seemed to twist and dance upwards –“poems” as Kahlil Gibran said “that the earth writes on the sky.”

When I took the 2008 picture of the “dancing elm”, its branches interlaced with the branches of 10 other trees on the boulevard and in my yard to create an intricate canopy of branches over my head. Nine of those 11 trees are now gone, and when the dancing elm and its neighbour (also marked with the red dot) are cut down, the sky above my head, which used to be a sea of waving branches, will be nothing but bare sky.
The last three of the trees were lost in dramatic fashion two summers ago when a strong wind blew down the huge ash that had towered over my house for 70-or-more years. It would have damaged the house, except that a maple in my garden shouldered the bulk of its weight until it was pulled by its roots out of the ground and both trees settled over my back deck.
I think it was the next morning, when a squirrel looked accusingly at me, that my attitude towards trees began to change.

I no longer take them for granted. As Jodi Mitchell said, “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.”
I’m amazed now, when I walk down the street, that I’ll suddenly just be stopped by the magnificence of a thick tree trunk that I’ve seen a thousand times, but just never really been aware of.
Now I find, I’m aware.
I’m aware of the tremendous beauty and the many patient years of growth that each old tree represents.
Perhaps that’s why, amongst the neighbours and friends who came to my tree party, several were from a Buddhist group with whom I mediate. They are practitioners of awareness.
As I walked up and down my street delivering an invitation to the tree party, several people pointed to big stumps and told how they had cried when their big trees were cut down. (In the last five years, 42 trees have been lost on our block.)
Sarah Smith, across the street from me, helped me put the final touches on our plan and agreed to have a secondary fire to cook S’mores as part of our celebration.
And, after a brilliant week of almost-summer-like temperatures and sunshine, November 3rd dawned with heavy rain. As Sarah and I looked out on the rain-saturated ground and the rain deluging down that afternoon, we thought of cancelling, but decided that trees didn’t hold rain dates so we wouldn’t either.
One by one, many holding umbrellas aloft, neighbours arrived to celebrate the trees. Members of my Buddhist group helped build the fire. Samantha, of the West Broadway Tenants’ Committee, and well-known for never venturing out into foul weather, arrived. Chantale and Irene and a friend from Balmoral arrived, and, sheltering under an umbrella, started cooking hot dogs on the grill. Wolseley resident and tree champion Jim Palmquist arrived. Friends like Terese and Virginia arrived.

It was amazing as the rain poured down how many people came to honour the trees. As the evening darkened, we huddled around the bonfire or on the big porch, and people told stories of the trees in their lives.
James explained how he had always taught his kids that if they got lost in the forest, they should hug a tree. That way they would stay in one place as searchers searched for them. Amanda told of the tree in her grandparent’s yard that had a “wonky branch” that stuck out just above head height, ideal for climbing or tying a swing. Jim described growing up in St. Vital when it was all fields and trees, now replaced by endless housing projects. Brian described a tree where he grew up where he and friends built a watchtower 60 feet in the sky. Terese remembered her tree-planting days; Ron remembered his family’s ill-fated attempt to establish a tree farm; our newest neighbours, from Iran, described trees in their home country; Eva told of giant baobab trees she’d seen in Africa; Elora, (aged 7) one of the youngest members present, told of a tree that slanted along the ground at her cottage and had steps built into it so she could climb along its trunk and curl up in its branches with a blanket and her iPad.

We had no ritual that night, just 25-or-so people standing around a fire on a rainy night, remembering trees and thanking them for the part they’ve played in our lives. Sarah said it best, when she led us all in a toast: “Thank You Nature.”
And perhaps Nature heard, especially in the form of that lovely dancing elm, towering above all of us as we told our stories, just as it has spread its branches over dozens of such neighbourhood gatherings over its long life.
“Thank You Elm.”