Our Magnolia is young, only 25 years old. It dominates our front lawn and it has more seed pods this year than ever before, a result of our deep freeze in February, I’m sure. This post on Facebook yesterday by the Herbalist Janet Kent in Asheville, North Carolina, makes me appreciate this grand tree of ours so much more.
- - DEEP - TIME - -
Seasonal reminder to go soak up some of the deep time medicine of Magnolia trees while their pink buds open a hundred orifices to release bright red fruit. Fossilized specimens of Magnolia acuminata, aka Cucumber Tree, the deciduous Magnolia who grows in the Eastern forests of Turtle Island have been dated at 20 MILLION years old. These were some of the first flowering plants alongside those other purveyors of deep time medicine, the Water Lilies. Since Magnolias evolved before bees, botanists conjecture that they grew aromatic flowers to attract beetles to provide the service of pollination.
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What these trees have seen! The first primates in the same genus as humans emerged 2 million years ago. Our species arrived only 200,000 years ago. Magnolias were here 18 million years before that. To sit under the big leaves of a Magnolia is to sit with the smallness of our species, to remember the long story that came before us and to consider the long story that will follow long after we exit. Time is not linear, it is cyclical. And though we love stories and use them to understand the world, we err when we place our young species at the center of the narrative. This perspective, as humbling and awe-inspiring as considering the starry sky, is such important medicine right now.
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Go find a Magnolia if you live near one. Place your hand on their trunk and close your eyes. Let the waves of their long knowing move through you. Lie beneath their large leaves and picture all they have seen. To feel small is a gift when our grief is large. ✨💚✨
We have a huge magnolia tree just close to our decking - might be a bit different as it doesn't seem to have a single trunk. We had to top it the other day as it had got so big!
