I am in this state of awe. I am in this state of amazement thinking about how we evolve as humans. We grow up learning from our parents, friends, family members to a point where we think we know it all and then life humbles us. Then, we watch others go through similar rites of passage, and sometimes we are impotent to do anything but listen because they too have to see that life will humble and sometimes that’s all its doing.

The Giant Sitka Spruce is a good example of that. Around 1250, it began its life from a seedling in a forest that had yet been touched by white men. The Magna Carta was being signed a world away and across an ocean. Soon, those countries across the ocean would experience plague, religious fighting, new religions, and mass exodus of various peoples who would slowly then quickly make their way to this land. This Sitka Spruce might have witnessed the vanishing Native American tribes the onset of Lewis & Clark the destruction of timber all around — all within its 700 year lifetime. We are mere blips on the map of this giant tree‘s life.

This giant tree has watched humanity grow, in ebbs and flows throughout periods of maturity and immaturity. This tree has watched new generations come in with their new ideas and new ways of doing things. What can we learn from this tree? What should we learn?

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