Ernst Jünger on the Tree

"Since the tree demands veneration, it has its strongest effect where man, through his art, creates the free space it deserves. This cannot happen overnight. Whoever plants a tree is thinking for grandchildren and great-grandchildren. This includes a caring sense that goes beyond daily consumption and quick use, even beyond one's own life and death. It continues; we feel it in the tranquillity, the peace that makes us happy in an old park. The ancestors have thought of us. We enter into them, remove ourselves from the circles of chasing, threatening time. We feel peace, even in decay. Nuthatches and woodpeckers nest in the hollow trunks, mushrooms settle on the rotten wood, reddish-brown dust trickles from the wormholes. We stroke the bark of the old brother; he has seen tournaments and was already stately when Columbus armed the caravels. There is stronger, dreaming life, and our life itself with its temporal worries becomes a dream. What may remain of them before another century passes?

If, after a period of unlimited use, we protect and cherish the tree, and especially the old tree, we do no more than our duty. This service is not like that of an invalid whom we allow a number of good days in hospital before he retires. In fact, it is not we who protect the tree: it is the tree that gives us its protection. We are allowed to enter it. The old oak, the old lime, the old ash that we honour is a symbol that represents not only the tree of life but also the tree of the world. By not daring to touch them, we testify that the inviolable is honoured and endures. This then also gives meaning and justice to our world and life order. That is why sacrifices had to be made in the past before a tree was felled."