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THE SOUL OF THE OAK

The gentle, golden-colored hills upon which I live here in Northern California are teeming with plant and animal life but, the unrivaled sovereigns of our little piece of Sonoma County landscape are the oaks: The live oaks, black oaks, leather oaks, valley oaks Oregon oaks and blue oaks which grace the flat grasslands and dot the low, rolling hills or gather in stands in moist, cool glens in-between.

Artfully regal, unmistakably grand, ostentatiously moss-dripped and discernibly ancient; the oaks are all around us. Soon after I moved into the small cabin where I now live in the hills of northern Sonoma County, I happened to glance out the window one morning and noticed something unusual about one of the oak trees. There, in the damp, late morning light, I saw what plainly looked like a face - strangely reminiscent of an elf or fairy - emerging from the trunk of one of the leather oaks. Prominently visible in three-quarter profile were an upturned nose, a prominent, dimpled chin, lips and indentions where the eyes would be were it faced toward the viewer instead of away.

I christened "him" with the name Oakley and, now, a day doesn't go by that I don't stop at the window and bid him good morning.

I began to wonder if this personification of oak trees was merely a quirk of my own nature or if there could be more to it, so, I did some research on the lore of the oak in human history:

The oak has been known by many names throughout history: Father of the Woods, King of the Forests, Tree of Britain and Jove's Nuts. The deities associated with it are many: Hecate, Diana, Rhea, Circe, Athena, Demeter, Zeus, Hercules, Pan, Jehovah, Odin, Thor, and Janus.

It has a long association with the planet Jupiter which, because of its size, has a close association to the Sun. As the ruling planet of Sagittarius, Jupiter's element is fire and it represents the principles of protection, health and healing, fertility, luck, money, joviality and potency.

I knew that, particularly in California history, the oak was especially revered by the indigenous peoples as the acorn was one of their main sources (if not their main source) of food.

In Chapter Eleven of his book "Who Will Roll Away the Stone? Discipleship Queries for First World Christians" (Orbis Books, 1994), Chad Myers gives us an idea of the importance of the oak to the California natives:

"No matter how far one digs through the cultural-historical strata of this place, the oak is always there.

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