Christmas tree in Tompkins Square Park ©Lauren Helf
December 12, 2020
In Veneration of Trees
In rural communities, once the newspaper accreditation has faded and the tinsel and all is
carted away, do residents feel the hole in their landscape as a gaping, disturbing absence, since they've cut
down their tallest and most impressive evergreen to truck downstate to NYC in donation to the Rockefeller
Center Christmas display?
A more eco-sensitive message is delivered by the temporary ornamentation of an existing, living tree. Pictured
here, the tree in Tompkins Square Park. Granted, it's very far from the best decorated, but in any case,
I'm still more drawn to the natural beauty of the others around it.
How the tradition
of the Christmas tree came about, and different ways they're presented throughout the world:
History.com
Why the worldwide million acres of tree farms would be much more productive for the environment if they
were unharvested forest:
"The Social Life of Forests" - Suzanne Simard's science of tree communication within the ecosystem:
New York Times Magazine
and
The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohllenben: goodreads.com
