Maundy Thursday's Living Ent
Ents are a mythological creatures, living trees that walk and talk. They are slow but wise beyond time and wisdom. The most famous is Treebeard, a creature in JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings novels. Tolkien claimed to have invented the creatures for his writings, but the idea of the wisdom of trees and their personification goes back in many forest cultures for 1000s of years. In fact, the word "Ent" was not coined by Tolkien, but came from his extensive knowledge of Old English. The Old English word ent or eoten, meant "giant." So, one can immediately follow Tolkien's brilliant imagination in fusing the word "ent" with an ancient giant tree from various strands of mythology.
From my own background, a Cherokee word for tree is tlu-gv (pronounced (t)'SLU Gah)-the opening "t" sound is almost silent (It is kind of slurred in). In Cherokee syllabary the letters are ᏡᎬ. I prefaced that sentence with "a Cherokee word..." because there is not a precise word for "tree" as a group in Cherokee. ᏡᎬ is about as close as you can get, and that basically means "big woody plant." That may seem odd of English speakers because it would seem like "tree" would be up there with general basic words like "mother," "father," "food," etc. Really, however, the Cherokee have different names for every time of tree. Take for instance this graphic (borrowed from the Oklahoma Cherokee Nation website:
To be honest, I have forgotten almost all of that since I have been out of school. It never interested me much because you would end up with these weird Latinized classification names like Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi for Giraffe or whatever. While very useful for scientific classification purposes, the name strings just seemed to be picked at random by scientists in lab coats. While such Zoological Nomenclature tells a story of a sort, that was never really explained to students in a coherent manner. They just seemed to be Latin names picked at random that we had to learn by rote enough to regurgitate on a test to pass and then forget it all the moment we walked out of class.
In retrospect, I always found that kind of a missed opportunity for learning because such strings do tell a story-and an interesting one at that. In the example I gave above, you can learn the name of what scientist discovered said animal (a Mr. Rothschild who founded the Tring Library and was a noted zoologist) and that there was a star constellation that was a giraffe (hence the name). Who knew any of that when they were teaching us this in high school biology? It would have made the subject more more engaging to tie these long strings of Latinized scientific names to an understandable story. And yet, the way it is presented in classrooms, the students might as well be having to memorize random nonsense incantation words like Oobius Doobius Tryphanimorgis 14.
While I am sure the standardized Zoological Nomenclature system made some sense back when Latin was still a very central part of Western education. Most professors' lectures were even taught in Latin until well into the early 1800s in many places. It was really not until the late 1700s that Latin really ceased to be a living lingua franca language in most classrooms across Europe. While Latin has made a small comeback in certain Classical Education models in the last ten years, you are still lucky now if any schools (or even Universities for that matter) have classes in learning Latin. And if they do, it's taught more as a novelty second language class, like someone might want to learn some passable Spanish or Chinese for a business trip. The philosophy and logic one has to learn to memorize Latin conjugation tables has almost entirely disappeared, even in places where Latin is still occasionally taught as a language class.
But, back to my musings on Cherokee and trees. The Cherokee language has different names for all the various trees in the traditional forests. This is not because these are the Cherokee versions of the Western biological science naming stratum, but rather because each name tells a story. All trees are connected into the Great Forest. Each has a spirit, if you will. Not so much a spirit like the ghost of Aunt Martha or a demon named Beelzebub, though there are some talking trees in some mythology stories. Each is a personification of something akin to a greater philosophical virtue or vice not unlike the depiction of the blind folded Lady Wisdom in front of a courthouse. Each element is part of the collective whole that makes up the community of the Great Forest.
Traditional Cherokee mythology is hard to map out, as there have been so many outside cultural influences that have shaped and reshaped the traditional stories. This included contact with Christianity certainly, but also bumping up against other competing and complementary mythologies of other indigenous tribes, particularly when so many tribes came into close and permanent contact when removed to places like Oklahoma. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Cultures come into contact with each other, and stories can meld and fuse and change somewhat, but the essence (at least I still believe) of these myths still remain. And so it is true with the trees, and the spirits of the individual trees.
So, where am I going with all this? This is a Maundy (Holy) Thursday reflection after all. Trees tell individual stories, but also play a roll in the collective whole of a greater narrative. This is why Tolkien
was so enthralled with his creation of the Ents. In fact, most of the last great portrait photos of him later in life are taken outside. He is either sitting under a tree, or there is almost always some tree somewhere in the background. Tolkien loved trees because trees tell a story. They live so long and have seen so many things. It is in the company of trees that we encounter both wisdom and adventure.
In fact, when we first meet Frodo in the Fellowship of the Ring, he is sitting in a tree and reading a book when Gandalf finally arrives on the cart that is bringing the fireworks for Bilbo's 11ty-First birthday celebration. The Lord of the Rings trilogy circles back to trees at the very end, when Frodo and Sam return home after their quest, to find the scouring of the Shire occurring, which Tolkien describes as the disgraced wizard, Saruman and his ruffians cutting down trees and destroying old houses, as well as replacing the old mill with a larger one full of machinery which pollutes the air and the water. This precipitates one final battle where Saruman is finally defeated once and for all, but the permanent damage to the Shire has been done. There is no going home again once the trees have been felled.
This brings me to my final Maundy Thursday image and reflection. I took this picture a few months ago in the garden of Gethsemane. It is an olive tree. Not just any olive tree, but on that is 2000 years old. It is still living and bearing fruit after all these centures. If the tree could talk, it might well quote another famous passage from Tolkien:
And so it is with this olive tree.
It was there the day Christ prayed in the garden.
It was there the day strength of men like Judas and the other disciples failed.
It was there the day Jesus died.
And it is there still, as a reminder of the events that happened on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.
Heed the wisdom of the Maundy Thursday Ent.
Trees tell stories.
Not stories in languages no one understands,
but stories God writes into the rings of living trees.
Trees can bear testament to much,
if you listen to the whispers of their branches.
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