The Trees. The Trees.

The government permits one hour a day for outside exercise. But it sometimes feels more like a compulsory command. Nevertheless, it guarantees that I leave the house each day. Otherwise, on a Sunday afternoon, like today, when the weather turns cold, I might be tempted to stay inside all the time. And I do need that head-clearing, mind-refreshing, wind-blowing, it brings.

I particularly appreciate the trees, which, it is commonplace to note, abound in London. I learned to value them, when I got married; and my wife pointed out the joy of blossom in spring. So that, this season reminds me simultaneously of their transient beauty, and of her. Last year, however, my spiritual director recommended I keep a journal, noting where I found beauty through the day. It would be, she claimed, a sign of God’s presence in my daily life. Prayer, after all, is not just about what we say, during the moments we officially allocate for it; it’s also attending to God’s voice in the everyday, when we experience some ‘quickening’, energising, of the soul. As Aquinas wrote, God has two books: Scripture and nature. We need to learn how to read both. 

Subsequently, my psycho-therapist (who I was seeing because of my long-lasting depression) asked me what gave me energy. So, I told her about the trees. In response, she wondered if it was the roots which appealed to me. No, I said, it was the size of the tree, its branches, leaves; its sheer spread. For a time, I pondered why there was this mismatch between her assumption, and my feelings. I guess the roots speak of drawing resource, sustenance, from the soil, for growth; going deeper, profounder. But for me, the tree is life; it’s the growth which impresses, rather than the digging down deep to feed that growth. Height not depth. The possibilities of creativity and originality.

This connects, for me, with the writings of Carl Jung and Roberto Assagioli, formulators respectively of psycho-analysis and psycho-synthesis. Their approaches were in contrast to Sigmund Freud, whose method stayed strictly in the basement of the human psyche, investigating its hidden recesses, to discover the dark drives which riddle our compulsions and neuroses. In their different ways, Jung and Assagioli wanted to learn how the higher reaches of our aspirations could be encouraged by psychology: art, creativity, meaning – even the spiritual life. To this degree they were similar to the existentialist psychology of Viktor Frankl, Abraham Maslow, and Erich Fromm. These all aimed at the upper branches of the tree, of human development, rather than only healing the deeper hurts. They were not satisfied with Freud’s humble aim – not making patients happy, but reconciling them with the ordinary sadness of life.

But we also need roots. Perhaps this period of lockdown is an opportunity, to find out what makes for growth in our lives, psychologically or spiritually? Not just dealing with the negative feelings, which do arise in isolation, but also encouraging those which direct us upwards?