I took a long walk through Ibirapuera Park in Sao Paulo, Brazil yesterday. I’d compare its beauty and size to Central Park in Manhattan, the only two differences to me were that everybody was playing soccer instead of baseball and then, the trees.

There was one, especially, that was huge, whose roots went on above ground for 50 yards or more. The children stood fascinated and played under it and seemed drawn to its majesty, climbing its roots as if it were a favorite grandfather that they could maul and hang on to.

The tree struck me as simply patient with all these crawling little “bugs” and also a little proud to be admired so. I stood and gazed at the spectacle for several long moments and it reminded me of another old friend who was also a tree.

Many years ago, in my wild and ever-searching youth, I found myself walking alone in a dense forest in New Hampshire late one summer afternoon. The temperature was in the high 90s that day and so the shade of the woods was welcomed and perhaps about 10 degrees cooler. I came upon this tree. It wasn’t as big or famous as the Ibirapuera Park tree; it stood rather lonely perhaps among others.

Nothing in particular made it stand out except that it had several exposed roots that caught my attention. I stopped and stared for quite some time and as I was doing so, suddenly had the distinct impression that the tree might be as curious about me as I was of it.

I walked over to a patch of soft grass about 10 yards from the trunk and sat down to get into the experience.  After a while, as the sun would cut through the leaves intermittently and warm the grass, I lay down on my back and stared up through its leaves and branches into the flickering sunlight.

Once in school someone told me that the spread and size of the branches were matched underground by the spread and size of the root system. I started thinking about this and imagining this root system beneath my body going on, living on beneath my body, reflecting the branches above. Then I considered the trunk, that central point between the two earthly and heavenly extensions.

I spent a long time trying to imagine where the brains of this tree were, if in fact it had brains. But something had to govern this magnificent creature. There had to be some central point of processing for this amazing expression of life.

This tree had stood there, alive, with its other tree friends for many decades here in this forest. This was not a well-traveled path, so it had probably seldom been visited or admired by the likes of me. So this was as special a moment in the life of this tree as it was in the life of me. My awareness of this newly found friend deepened and I began to consider the life essence that poured through it from roots to trunk to branches daily.

Year after year its leaves would drop and rot and become the earth that collected the nutrients from the water and other dead and rotting things around. This became its food and drink. In essence, it lived off of itself. It was somewhat self-perpetuating. How clever of you, oh tree.

I began to understand its food system, but where oh where did its life essence come from? It was then that I got it. As I lay on my back in the grass and dirt in the sun and shade, I realized that he got it from the same place that I got it. His life essence was the same as mine – not similar, but exactly the same. This tree expressed itself differently than I – I was mobile, he was not – its body looked different than mine, but then he had a different purpose than I. The possibilities and plausibilities were overwhelming.

It all became simply too much to consider for my young mind. But this one thing I knew for sure that day while I too was rooted in the earth: My friend, the tree, and I were the same. Essentially the same. He (it) seemed both masculine and feminine, but then again so am I. He was amazing in his processing power to grow, to change with the seasons, to weather the storms, to get along with his neighbors (do trees fight?), to shed his skin, to bloom and fade, to be born again and to die.

I deeply considered springing roots right there and then and staying. Oh, it seemed a simpler and better life in the moment. Besides, how could I possibly get up and leave this new-found friend? I considered a name for him… “Tree.” And so it was. Perhaps he lived by another name, but “Tree” seemed somehow appropriate for that day. What a concept! Why not just spring roots and stay, Pete?

I must have fallen asleep for a time. I only know that I awakened as the bugs began to eat me from beneath.  It was then that I began to consider the realities of my choice. Would I really eat of the dirt? Would it not get cold when the sun went down? Would the bugs win? In my imagination my relationship moved from neighbor to guest. I realized that two and a half hours had passed. It was time to go home.

I said my fond farewells, promising to return again and again. Of course I never did. “Tree” waits for me still.

Perhaps not.

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