I came across an interesting book, Black Dawn/Bright Day, in which a Native American named Sun Bear with Marlise Wabun Wind had something important to say about trees. Wabun Wind is the author of 12 non-fiction books and spent 16 years working with Sun Bear.
Black Dawn/Bright Day was published in 1990 by Bear Tribe Publishing in Spokane, Washington. Sun Bear is known as an Earth Keeper. In Black/Dawn/Bright Day, he writes about Earth changes and how to prepare for them.
He was born in 1929 on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. His given name was Vincent LaDuke. As a young boy, he began having visions, which led to his development as a shaman, medicine man and teacher. He was the founder and medicine chief of the Bear Tribe, a multi-racial educational society. He was a sacred teacher of Ojibwaa/Metis descent and was the author or coauthor of eight books. He died in 1992.
His thoughts about the importance of trees caught my attention. I think what he said is worth repeating. Sometimes we forget how important trees are to our planet and even to our survival.
In Chapter 5 on page 92 of Black Dawn/Bright Day, he wrote, "The dominant society's approach to the Earth is that of a 'Death Culture.' For instance, people cut down all the trees around a pond in the mountains. Then the pond dries up and there is no water for animals. The watershed is gone because, without the trees, the snows don't stay. So the mountain becomes barren. And for every large tree which is cut down it takes approximately 2,500 seedlings to replace its oxygen output. So we lose the oxygen. If we keep it up, humans will be a dead culture. If we would only realize that it takes twelve trees to provide enough oxygen for each one of us, we might look differently at them, and at the magnitude of the other things we are doing to the planet and all our relations upon it."
Sometimes we don't realize that when trees around a pond in the mountains are cut down, their absence creates so much damage. In our own small way we can nurture trees by taking care of the ones in our own yards. Every tree we give life-giving water to can do a better job of carrying out its purpose, which is to help keep us and our planet healthy.