Cycles of Growth and Death
The seed of a deciduous tree falls from the branch of its mother. Destined, like her mother, to become a female tree, she lands and rests upon the earth. Depending on seed and circumstance, she might rest there for years. If and when conditions are favourable, she germinates. A baby tree begins to grow.
Nested within her life cycle, which may last centuries, an annual cycle plays out.
As she grows, her trunk gradually thickens in alternating rings of lighter and darker wood. The lighter, thicker rings grow in spring and summer. The darker, thinner rings grow in autumn.
As winter approaches, growth rates slow, leaves drop away, and she enters deep rest until spring. The resulting pattern of concentric rings is a track or trace of the annual on-off pulse in the flow of nutrients fuelling growth.
Nested inside this annual cycle of growth and rest is the faster cycle of day and night. In the growing season, trees spend the daylight hours working their alchemical magic. Harvesting sunlight to split water molecules to fix carbon dioxide into the sugars underpinning all life on earth. Breathing out the oxygen you are currently breathing as a by-product. Quite the job description!
While respiration continues when night falls, photosynthesis ceases, and again, the tree enters a resting state. Studies show tree branches “relaxing” and drooping 10cm at night before perking up again come morning.
With the pre-germination seed, the dormant season’s days, and the year-round nights, deciduous trees thus spend most of their lives in a state of partial or complete rest.
Whether we’re looking at the cycles of rest across her whole life, a year or a day, there is nothing mechanical in how her activity transitions into rest, and her rest back into activity. It is not a clockwork affair, triggered by pre-set alarm. It is about her discerning the shifting gradients of such factors as moisture, sunlight, and heat when the time is right to shift.
Once germination commences, it is about her organic sensitivity and responsiveness to what is going on in its wider context relative to her own current internal state.
This is a stark contrast to what us humans have become, with our calendars and clocks and reminders and plans and schedules and deadlines. Where “it ran like clockwork” is seen as a compliment. For many, the resulting dis-ease generates a yearning to re-immerse in the rest-infused, nested cycles of nature from whence we came.
The urge for nature-connection commonly plays out with the likes of a bush walk or camping trip. Where nature is a location, a destination or perhaps a small garden we set up in our backyard.
A complementary sense of nature connection might lie in simply reconnecting with non-mechanical signals about when it is time to speed up and time to slow down. Wherever we are. Listening for and to those natural rhythms and cues inside and outside to intentionally realign the patterns of rest within our days, months and years.
In my home, after the experience of having our busy daily routines disrupted by COVID, our two daughters decided not to return to school. We decided to try un-schooling, to let the girls lead any learning they wanted.
In the following months, I worried that our nine-year-old might be stagnating. She spent days lying around, listening to audio books or complaining she was bored.
Then, just as I was feeing deep uncertainty about our decision, and wondering whether we’d best re-enter the system, it happened. Without out any prompt from us, like a seed cracking open, she spent an entire day hammering out a shield, the next hand carving a wooden spear, and so on, day after day after day. Working for hours, teaching herself, very occasionally asking for help. It was like an irrepressible creative impulse had been biding its time, and all buds were suddenly bursting.
Next time she or any of us naturally transition into a more restful state, I’ll have trust that we, too, are woven into nature’s nested cycles. Where resting when it is time to rest is a beautiful, needed and healthy part of what it means to be alive.
This thought piece was published in our latest issue of Dumbo Feather magazine. Treat someone you love to four issues of Dumbo Feather, beginning with our current issue Rest. This year has been enormous, and our team have compiled this issue in honour of restoration and regeneration for the year ahead. Order now at www.dumbofeather.com
Dan Palmer is co-founder of the Permablitz movement, founder of Making Permaculture Stronger and co-director of Very Edible Gardens – an established urban permaculture design service in Melbourne.