TREES ARE SANCTUARIES (10 Articles)

  In observance of the International DAY OF THE FOREST (March 21, 2025) and EARTH Day (April 22, 2025)

 Trees are Sanctuaries 

Dr Abe V Rotor

“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth.” 

-  Herman Hesse

Part 1 - Requiem to a Heritage Acacia Tree

Part 2 - Dirge of the Narra and Acacia

Part 3 - A Cross in the Sky

Part 4 - Hanging Garden

Part 5 - A Driftwood's Odyssey

Part 6 - A Critique on the Lost Eden

Part 7 - Greet Sunrise through the Trees

Part 8 - The Sound of Trees

Part 9 - Let Us Save the Heritage Acacia* Trees

             Along the Highway

Part 10 - Tropical Rainforest Profile

Part 1 - Requiem to a Heritage Acacia Tree

Relics on Display at the Living with Nature Center

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

Relics of a century-old acacia (Samanea saman) in relief artwork

 (24" x 16")  by AV Rotor 2025

Your relics are your coffin and that of man,

your guardian who killed you and your kin,

and soon your very species forever gone,

with only memories in archives remaining. 

  

Details of relief painting, Requiem to a Heritage Acacia Tree, AVR 

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The International Day of Forests, also known as World Forestry Day, was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 and is celebrated annually on March 21st. The day aims to raise awareness about the importance of forests and trees, and to promote their conservation and sustainable management. The theme for the International Day of Forests in 2025 is "Forests and Foods".

The theme for Earth Day 2025 is OUR POWER, OUR PLANET, inviting everyone around the globe to unite behind renewable energy, and to triple the global generation of clean electricity by 2030. How? By joining us in Earth Action Day, encouraging all to take action—educate, advocate, and mobilize. Pledge an Earth Action on social media. Attend/plan/register a local event. Integrate Earth Day lessons into your curricula. Donate to support our efforts. Below you’ll find resources (plus quizzes, fact sheets, articles and more) to help you take action this Earth Day, April 22nd, and every day.

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Part 2 - Dirge of the Narra and Acacia

Former title: Heritage Tree Remembered

 Wood shards from a heritage tree against a forest 

background AV Rotor (16” x 24.5”) 2023

I sing the dirge of the Narra and Acacia,

     heritage trees our children shall miss

at the verge of extinction like Sequoia;

     save some epitaphs and memories.

If only art can take over their absence,

     in monuments and legends they live,

but where is sanctity, what is reverence,

     what can man to his Creator give?

 

Part 3 - A Cross in the Sky 

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Skeleton of an acacia tree, QC

I have lost you forever,

now a silhouette in the sky,

spreading a gospel to remember

for the mindless passerby.

You lived half of your life,

yet fullest at the Throne;

earning it well with strife, 

where every seed is grown.

The birds now a flock, 

the child a man; 

you bid them all the luck,

and now you are gone.

In youth you sheltered me,

a thought I can't be free,

I atone for your brevity, 

with a thousand-and-one tree.~

Part 4 - Hanging Garden

Dr Abe V Rotor

Lianas make a flimsy veil on the trunk and limbs of an acacia tree. La Union Botanical Garden, Cadaclan, San Fernando LU. On-the-spot painting by the author. 

Where have all the flowers gone?

Gone with the passing clouds in the sky

Casting a shadow of death, then fly,

Leaving but a scorching sun.

Where have all the flowers gone?

Gone with every tear the heavens cry

On tired branches and empty ground

Where angels pass by.

Where have all the flowers gone?

Gone with the dryads now away…

Gone are the shower and bouquet

That make a beautiful day.

Part 5 -  A Driftwood's Odyssey

Dr Abe V Rotor

San Vicente Integrated School coed, Miss Riyzza Mae Rotor Carbonel, shows her school project - a table vase made of driftwood, seashells, and recycled plastic materials.

I am a remnant of a felled tree in a forest long ago,

     drifting down the river to the sea;

braving the elements and patient with time, too;

     free but knowing not my destiny. 

For how long I drifted far and wide I do not know,

     my world was aimless and carefree

among creatures I met, that would come and go. 

     but to whom can I tell this long story?

Until the tides took me one day into another view,

     to where trees stood happy once like me,

where people brought back old memories anew;

     but I am now but a waste of the sea. 

Until a curious lass took me for something new,

     something for the arts, not for money;

but some kind of beauty in my ugliness to show

     Nature's hidden artistic quality. ~

Main face of the driftwood vase

Views of the driftwood vase in perspective variations. ~

Part 6 -  A Critique on the Lost Eden

Dr Abe V Rotor

Light in the Woods, acrylic, AVR 1994

A long list of vanished and vanishing species - even those that have not been discovered and named – haunts the human species, Homo sapiens, the most intelligent of all creatures. If this is not an evidence of the original sin which he continues to commit since his early ancestors were driven from Paradise, then we are merely being led to believe in something bound by deep faith, and in something supernatural.

Every time we destroy a forest, a coral reef, or grassland, we are repeating the fault of our ancestors. The biblical story is fiction if we fail to grasp its essence. True, exile comes in many ways. But definitely, if an ecosystem is destroyed, if it loses its capacity to provide the basic needs of its inhabitants, starvation, death, and other forms of deprivation follow. Does this not trigger exile – or exodus, which is the ultimate recourse for survival?

Here is a poem I wrote upon reaching Tagum. It is about the destruction of a forest I related in the first part of this article.

Lost Forest

Staccato of chirping meets the breeze and sunrise,

Waking the butterflies, unveiled by the rising mist;

Rush the stream where fish play with the sunbeam

And the rainforest opens, a stage no one could miss,

With every creature in a role to play without cease.

John Milton wrote his masterpiece of Paradise,

While Beethoven composed sonata with ecstasy,

Jean Fabre and Edwin Teale with lens in hand

Discovered a world Jules Verne didn’t see,

But found Aldo Leopold’s ecosystem unity.

For how long to satiate man’s greed can nature sustain?

It was not long time ago since progress became a game,

Taking the streets, marching uphill to the mountain,

Where giant machines roar, ugly men at the helm -

Folly, ignorance and greed are one and same.

                                                       AVRotor, 2001

Forest Fire, Acrylic, AVR 1995

In 1960 Philippine Dipterocarp Forests occupied almost 14 million hectares. What is left today is only three and one-half million hectares. The average rate of decline is over 2 percent annually. What is more alarming is the decline in the volume of trees in the forest which around 6 percent in the last 30 years. All over the world, annual deforestation represents an area as large as Luxemburg. This means every tick of the clock is a hectare of rainforest permanently erased from the globe.~

Part 7 - Greet Sunrise through the Trees

"Morning comes early as the sun peeps through the trees;

greet the birds and butterflies, lovers and artists." avr

Dr Abe V Rotor

Wake up under the green umbrella of trees, 

     cool and invigorating; 

Breathe freely, away from the stale city air,

     and catch the breeze passing.

Let the morning settle down on dewdrops,

     on mist like curtain parting;

Just let the world go by on Nature's scale,

     and life's sweet rhythm singing. 

Wake up from too much haste and worry,

     life's not a race for winning;

You may have the happiest moment in life,

     listen to the trees singing. ~ 

Canopy of heritage trees laden with lianas and ferns, 

Living with Nature Center, San Vicente, Ilocos Sur 

Greet Sunrise Through the Trees in acrylic by the author. ~

“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.”

— Kahlil Gibran

*Original Title - 2022 Year of the Trees

Part 8 -  The Sound of Trees

"I like to take the time out to listen to the trees, much in the same way that I listen to a sea shell, holding my ear against the rough bark of the trunk, hearing the inner singing of the sap. It's a lovely sound, the beating of the heart of the tree." - Author: Madeleine L'Engle"

 Dr Abe V Rotor

Caimito (Chrysophylum cainito); Talisay (Lugo Ilk) Terminalia catappa)

 

I'm a pygmy among giant trees,

     like walls of a fort guarding

against gust, noise, dust and glare,

     whispering and singing.

They greet me as the sun rises,

     bid me before sundown;

to my forebears and my children,

     bestow them the biggest crown. - avr

Macopa or Wax Apple (Syzygium samarangense)

"I hear them laugh with the breeze

and make my life at ease;

I talk to them when lonely and sad,

and hush me when mad." - avr

"Listen to no one's advice except that of the wind in the trees. That can recount the whole history of mankind." - Claude Debussy

"I love the sound of the wind in the trees and the song of the birds and the shuffle in the leaves of my many woodland friends." - Jason Mraz

 

Living stumps of Gmelina arborea

 felled by typhoon Lawin in 2016

Knock, knock, who is there?

a toad, a skink, asleep;

whispers the passing wind,

wake up, it's time to eat. - avr

 

"There was no sound but the murmur of nasty little stinging insects, the occasional crack of a falling branch, and the whispering of the trees discussing religion and the trouble with squirrels." - Author: Terry Pratchett

"With watercolour, you can pick up the atmosphere, the temperature, the sound of snow shifting through the trees or over the ice of a small pond or against a windowpane. Watercolour perfectly expresses the free side of my nature." - Author: Andrew Wyeth

"Listen ... With faint dry sound, Like steps of passing ghosts, The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break free from the trees And fall." - Author: Adelaide Crapsey

Towering heritage anahaw (Livistona rotundifolia)  

"Living towers you thrill us all,

sentinel, belfry, flagpole." - avr    

Trees do not preach learning and precepts. They preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life." ― Herman Hesse

Part 9 - Let Us Save the Heritage Acacia* Trees

Along the Highway

Photos taken from a moving car by Dr Abe V Rotor

March 24, 2023

"I came from Paradise Lost."

Adapted from Dead Tree Walking, AVR

“Trees give peace to the souls of men.” - Nora Waln

 

"Now senile, their limbs are bare, their crowns empty."  

“It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson

"A living skeleton standing and about to fall.  Timber!" 

“For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.” — Martin Luther

 

"Move over trees; we need highways, sidewalks and buildings." 

"The tree is more than first a seed, then a stem, then a living trunk, and then dead timber. The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky.”― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince

 

"Living towers, lonely and forgotten." 

“Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.”— Kahlil Gibran

 

"Living towers. These trees are leaning dangerously over the highway, having lost their main limbs to give way to power and communication lines."

 

"Grotesque and fearsome, this tree warns of danger to passersby." 

 

“A tree is our most intimate contact with nature.” ― George Nakashima

      

"Park at your own risk, but this is not the message.  

These trees are harmless, in fact benevolent to all." 

 

“Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.” ― Albert Schweitzer

 

"Juvenile acacia trees - will they ever become heritage trees?

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” ― John Muir

Acacia - Samanea saman (Jacq.) Merr.) - known commonly as Rain Tree, Pukul Lima, Cow Tamarind, Hujan-Hujan, East Indian Walnut, Monkey-pod, Saman. mimosa, acacia, thorntree or wattle, is a polyphyletic genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae (Leguminosae). It was described by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1773 based on the African species Acacia nilotica. 

Samanea saman, also known as Rain Tree, is a tree, up 30 m tall. It is widely cultivated in Southeast Asia, especially Singapore, for its iconic umbrella-shaped crown which provides plenty of shade. The leaflets fold up during overcast days and in the early evening, therefore it is also known as Pukul Lima, which means ‘five o clock’ in Malay.
 

The acacia tree is believed to be around for over 20 million years as scientists have found fossilized charcoal deposits which seem to have acacia trees preserved in them.

(Internet)

“If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.” 

― Hal Borland

“To be without trees would, in the most literal way, to be without our roots.”

― Richard Mabey

“Anyone who thinks fallen leaves are dead has never watched them dancing

 on a windy day.”― Shira Tamir

  

Amazing features of the Acacia (From the Internet)

“Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a shovel.” ― Aldo Leopold

“That each day I may walk unceasingly on the banks of my water, that my soul may repose on the branches of the trees which I planted, that I may refresh myself under the shadow of my sycamore.” – Egyptian tomb inscription

“He who plants a tree, plants a hope.”― Lucy Larcom ~

Acknowledgement: Quotations from the Internet

 Part 10 - Tropical Rainforest Profile

Dr Abe V Rotor

Rainforest serves as watershed, keeps river full and clean, 
creates a cool mini climate in the area, Bohol.

Reforestation rebuilds and increases stand of trees, Bohol

Let us look at the TRF profile like slicing a multi-layered cake and studying its profile. It is made up of storeys similar to a high-rise building. The “roof” or canopy is what we see as forest cover. Here and there are very tall trees called emergents jotting through the monotonous canopy like living towers.

From the air, the view of a tropical forest is one huge and continuous green blanket that catch the energy of the sun and through photosynthesis converts it into organic materials beginning with simple sugar to the most complex compounds from which useful materials are derived - wood, rubber, resin, and drugs, etc. These products are needed to sustain the life of countless organisms and the stability of the ecosystem itself.

From the forest floor, one can see only a little part of the sky, with the rays of the sun filtering through. But now and then, the trees, depending on the species, season and other environmental conditions, shed off their leaves, which can be compared to the molting of animals as they grow. Entire crowns of leaves fall and litter the forest floor. Transformation into humus continuously takes place with the aid of insects, bacteria, fungi, earthworms and the like. And this is very important because humus fertilizes the soil and conserves water acting as sponge and blanket.

This is one of the wonders of nature. Trees in a tropical rainforest have this special characteristic. They are not only self-fertilizing; they are soil builders. Through time, with the deciduous cycle repeated without end, the forest floor – even how thin the soil is, or how solid the underlying rock is – builds up, layer after layer, and it is this process that enables many organisms in the forest obtain their nutrition in order to grow.

Deciduousness allows sunlight to pour over the previously shaded plants occupying the various layers or storeys, which serve as specific habitats or niches. Occupying the lowest part of the forest, which is equivalent to the ground floor of a building, are mostly annuals, ferns and bryophytes. Next are the shrubs which occupy the lobby and second floor, followed by undergrowth trees that reach a height equivalent to the third and fourth floor, lianas and epiphytes which may reach as high as the eighth floor. It is not surprising to find emergent trees reaching up the 200 feet.

How big can a tree grow and for how long? Take the case of the Redwoods or Sequoia found growing in southern California, and China. I saw a tree of this kind in southern Taiwan, recently killed by lightning. The tallest redwood, which is still growing today, is 267.4 feet tall with a trunk diameter of 40.3 feet. It is estimated to be 3,500 years old.

The analogy of the layers of a rainforest with a ten- or twelve-storey building gives us in imagination of the orderliness of nature in keeping the rich biodiversity of the ecosystem.

The true forest primeval – the rain forest – stands along the equator now reduced into a sanctuary of “living fossils” of plants and animals that once constituted the eternal green cover of the earth.

The canopy at one time or another allows the sky to meet the residents of the forest from the ground floor to the upper storeys - something that if you stand among the trees during this transformation you will find a kind of communion that, while it can be explained biologically, fills the spirit with the wonders and mysteries of nature.

The tropical rainforest is a natural menagerie where peace, music, colors, patterns, art and skill are not so well known to modern man. The high-perched artists like squirrels and monkeys are better acrobats by birth and practice than any known human acrobats. Many primates howl with electrifying, ear splitting and blood-chilling sound that breadth the land. Above plummet the masters of the sky – the Philippine eagle and hawks, spotting their preys which may be several kilometers away, or hundreds of meters below – something which our modern spotting scopes can not yet achieve with readiness and precision.

Inside their tunnels the termite workers tap their way and chop the wood for their colony and themselves. Man has yet to learn more about the social structure of this insect. ~