Quotes on the sanctity of trees

Thomas Moore:

"Trees provide a rudimentary lesson in enchantment: We need not cling anxiously to our own subjectivity, will, and desire; instead we can place trust in the beings around us who demonstrate many alternative ways to be a contributing, outstanding individual. A tree tells us what gives us pleasure, and it is so good at offering us benefits beyond measure that we have no reason not to surrender ourselves to it. We can sit on a tree's limb, rest against its trunk, enjoy its fruits and nuts, sit under its shade, and watch it dance in the wind. The lessons we can learn from a tree are infinite, and its pleasures indescribable. There are moments in anyone's life when to be like a tree – tall, straight, fertile, rooted, branching, expressive, and solid – would be the most effective therapy."

Christine Valters Paintner:

"Perhaps this is why we feel so drawn to trees. Groves of redwoods and beeches are often compared to the naves of great cathedrals: the silence; the green, filtered, numinous light. A single banyan, each with its multitude of trunks, is like a temple or mosque – a living colonnade. But the metaphor should be the other way around. The cathedrals and mosques emulate the trees. The trees are innately holy."

See also: Maui’s 150-year-old banyan tree is growing leaves after being charred by the wildfires. It’s just the beginning of a long recovery, Kara Nelson, CNN, Sept 24, 2023

And follow-up: Missed communications and blocked evacuation routes: New report details problems and heroism from Maui’s disastrous wildfires Holly Yan, CNN, April 17, 2024

Mohammed Amara:

"We (Muslims) do not kill clerics, we do not kill women, we do not kill children, we do not kill trees. [emphasis added] This is what the prophet taught us. The U.S. and Britain are committing atrocities against our people everywhere but we shouldn't respond to a crime with a crime."

William Ian Miller:

"Did not the Talmudic sages 1,800 years ago require that no trees be grown within twenty-five cubits of a town, and that carob and sycamore trees were to be banished to fifty cubits' distance, along with carcasses and tanneries: 'To preserve the beauty of the town, every tree that is found nearer to the town than that must be cut down'?"

Sacred trees

See: "Teen arrested after felling of famous Sycamore Gap tree on Hadrian’s Wall." Police said that a deliberate act of vandalism may have brought down what is perhaps England’s most-photographed tree, which drew visitors from afar and appeared in the 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.” Sammy Westfall, Washington Post, September 28, 2023
Felling the tree damaged Hadrian's Wall.

Trees that are 350 million years old

"Five tree fossils buried alive by an earthquake 350 million years ago were found in a quarry in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, according to a study published Friday in the journal Current Biology." — CNN, Feb 2, 2024

"Over 100 million mangroves — a group of trees and shrubs that live mainly in coastal waters, where they are able to support entire ecosystems — would be planted as part of the project. That’s enough to absorb over 1.2 million metric tons of CO2 per year, according to URB, the sustainable city developer behind the initiative — the equivalent of removing 260,000 gas-powered vehicles from the road."
Plans for ‘world’s largest coastal regeneration project’ revealed in Dubai, Jacopo Prisco, CNN, May 14, 2024

"The giant trees, swollen of trunk and stubby of canopy, are unmistakable. Baobabs can live for more than 1,000 years, acting as the keystone species in dry forest environments in Madagascar, a swathe of continental Africa, and northwest Australia. Known as “mother of the forest” and “the tree of life,” nearly every part of the tree can be used by humans and animals, meaning they’re of enormous value to each ecosystem they inhabit."
Finally, an answer to a mystery surrounding these 1,000-year-old trees, Tom Page, CNN, June 24, 2024

See also: "Saying goodbye to Stumpy, the tree that changed my life," Opinion and photographs by Carol Guzy, CNN, July 8, 2024

Sources

Thomas Moore. The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. p. 23.

Christine Valters Paintner. Water, Wind, Earth & Fire: The Christian Practice of Praying with the Elements. Notre Dame, Ind.: Sorin Books, 2010. p. 110.

Mohammed Amara, of Cairo, on the Arabic-language TV network Al Jazeera, following the subway bombing in London in July 2005. Quoted in "Arab view: 'Enough, enough': Some Muslims fear backlash after UK bombs" by Octavia Nasr, CNN Senior Editor for Arab Affairs. www.cnn.com July 8, 2005.

William Ian Miller. Faking It. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. p 155. Citation: Maimonides, Book of Acquisition, "Laws Concerning Neighbors," 12.iii.10.I.

Photo of tree at Küçük Çamlıca, Istanbul, by Nevit Dilmen. Creative Commons 3.0. Wikimedia Commons.