I recently spent a fantastic day among some giant California redwoods, the tallest living things on our planet.
Some of these trees live to be 500 to 1000 years old. Giant Redwoods can survive for over 2000 years and grow over 350 feet. One of the trees we saw, has been growing for over 1400 years.
Some magic science facts to share with you: https://sempervirens.org/news/redwood-fairy-rings-and-the-magic-of-science/
In some places in the park, you can see the annual growth rings with plaques dating historical events. Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of dating tree rings to the exact year they were formed.
It is hard to wrap my mind around something living 1400 years (or longer).
1066 — Norman Conquest of Britain
1095 — Pope Urban II calls for the Crusades
1100s — Angkor Wat is built
1206 — Genghis Khan begins the creation of the largest land empire in history
1215 — Magna Carta signed
1271 — Marco Polo begins travels to Asia
1273 — Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica
The 1300s — Renaissance begins in Italy
1347 — Bubonic plague (Black Death) spreads in Europe
c.1387 — Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
1438 — Incan Empire formed in Peru
1455 — Gutenberg’s movable-type printing press produces the Bible
1492 — Columbus reaches the New World
1509 — Michelangelo begins painting Sistine Chapel
1513 — Machiavelli’s The Prince
1517 — Martin Luther initiates Reformation
1519 — Aztec Empire at height as Spanish arrive
1520 — Suleiman I “the Magnificent” presides over the Ottoman Empire’s greatest period
1522 — Magellan’s expedition circumnavigates the globe
1543 — Copernicus postulates a heliocentric universe
1603 — Shakespeare’s Hamlet
1605 — Cervantes’s Don Quixote, the first modern novel
1609 — Galileo makes first astronomical observations with a telescope
1643 — Taj Mahal completed
1664 — Newton’s theory of universal gravitation
1667 — Milton’s Paradise Lost
1690 — Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding
1721 — Bach completes the Brandenburg Concertos
1760 — Industrial Revolution begins in England
1764 — Mozart (aged eight) writes first symphony
1776 — U.S. Declaration of Independence; Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations
1787 — U.S. Constitution signed
1789 — French Revolution begins
1796 — Jenner discovers smallpox vaccine
1808 — Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
1815 — Battle of Waterloo crushes Napoleon
1819 — Bolívar defeats Spanish forces at Boyacá
1826 — Niepce takes the first photograph
1833 — Slavery was abolished in British Empire
1842 — Long uses first anesthetic (ether)
1859 — Darwin’s On the Origin of Species; Lenoir builds the first practical internal-combustion engine
1862 — Pasteur’s experiments lead to germ theory; Salon des Refusés introduces impressionism
1867 — Japan ends 675-year shogun rule
1876 — Bell patents the telephone
1879 — Edison invents electric light
The 1880s — Europe colonizes the African continent
1885 — World’s first skyscraper was built in Chicago
1893 — New Zealand becomes the first country in the world to grant women the vote
1895 — Lumiére brothers introduce motion pictures; Marconi sends the first radio signals
1897 — Herzl launches the Zionist movement
1900 — Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams
1903 — Wright brothers fly the first motorized airplane
1905 — Einstein announces the theory of relativity
1907 — Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon introduces cubism
1911 — Rutherford discovers the structure of the atom
1913 — Ford develops the first moving assembly line
1914 — World War I begins
1917 — Lenin leads the Bolshevik Revolution
1918 — Global “Spanish flu” epidemic
1928 — Fleming discovers penicillin
1929 — Hubble proposes the theory of expanding universe; U.S. stock market crash precipitates global depression
1939 — Hitler invades Poland; World War II begins
1945 — Atomic bombs are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the first electronic computer, ENIAC, is built; Arab League launches modern pan-Arabism
1946 — First meeting of U.N. General Assembly; Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech marks the beginning of the cold war
1947 — Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement leads to an independent India
1949 — Communist victory in China under Mao Zedong
1953 — Watson, Crick, and Franklin discover DNA’s structure
1954 — Brown v. Board of Education begins unraveling of U.S. racial segregation
1957 — Russia launches its first satellite, Sputnik I
1959 — Mary and Louis Leakey uncover hominid fossils
1969 — Armstrong and Aldrin walk on the Moon; Internet (ARPA) goes online
1981 — Scientists identify AIDS
1989 — Fall of Communism in Eastern Europe
1991 — Breakup of Soviet Union; apartheid ends in South Africa
Just scrolling through this list is dizzying. Like looking up at the redwoods.
& Throughout all of this human history, the redwoods grow. Through the tumult and upheaval, the wars, the death — they grow. Through the discoveries, the revelations, the revolutions — they grow.
These groves are portals. They exist separately — out of time, unchanged — while the world changes around them. The trees have their own history.
It’s a strange and humbling idea to wrap my head around. Through all of this the trees Just. Keep. Growing.
Many of the trees are charred at the base from forest fires. There are piles of logs littered through the grove that look like they were pulled straight out of my fireplace. Not only have these trees adapted to forest fires — fire being arguably the most damaging thing to wood — but the fire has actually become an essential part of their ecology. 🔥
That resiliency is fascinating. How many fires have a 1400-year-old tree seen, and weathered?
🐿️ How many generations of squirrels? Do squirrels have waiting lists for apartments in a 1400-year-old building? Or does the apartment go to the squirrel kids? The average lifespan of a squirrel is between 3–6 years. They have 2–4 babies in a litter, and 1–2 litters a year. How many squirrels have called a 1400-year-old tree home?
We were at the park to celebrate a 🎂 birthday, an annual revolution of the sun. It was a fabulous day for us short-lived (by comparison) human beings. These trees have had a lot of days, and a lot of trips around the sun. What would these trees tell us if we spoke their language?
Final thoughts:
Keep things in perspective. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Enjoy the stillness.
Remember your roots.
Stand tall, stand proud. Lengthen through the crown. No shrinking, no hiding, no playing small.
Orient to the light. Soak up the light.
Drink plenty of water.
Without rain, we’d have no rainbows.
Just. Keep. Growing.
Fully own your majesty, splendor, and grandeur. You are magnificent.
Live. Don’t just exist (paraphrased from Jack London).
Be welcoming to squirrels (?).
Redefine the fires in your life — that they may not consume you, but that they may instead bring about renewal.
With love,
Shannon
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& have a FABULOUS DAY 💖
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