Tree Climbing Perspectives
At the top of One tree hill on Te Tui Station you can see a long long way away. It’s funny how just that little bit of height can give you a perspective you wish you could see from down in the valley. I have a confession I scrambled up a bluegum (E saligna and E. botryoides) today. I needed the perspective.
Getting up was no problem as even a fleet-footed cat will tell you, getting down, well now, that’s a whole other story again. But the things you can see up there. Over the back fences of neighbours several houses away, what’s growing or not and where. The feeling was important. The need for the perspective. Sometimes I feel like there’s simply no other way except to take a ‘literal’ stand in order to get the thing you need the most.
Granted there are easier ways perhaps to get a perspective but from my experience there are none that stick in your mind with quite such alacrity as those with elements of danger attached to them (well, I’d consider the possibility of falling out of the tree as having elements of danger!) memorable, if nothing else. Hell, I’m 49 and if climbing a tree is against the law at my age then best I take a ticket in line for the funny farm!
But the thing about actually climbing the tree is not so much what you can see (although there’s that), no, the thing that’s the real ‘bring it home to mama’ is the sensation of being up high some place. Now, I have to say, the birds look sideways at you but that’s to be expected, it’s the sitting still, the closing of the eyes. What happens is difficult to describe. Up high, things fall off you (figuratively speaking).
It becomes more sensory than sensation actually. It feels like your body attunes, retunes itself even and I for my part had not a clue as to what unseen, unheard rhythm mine was retuning itself to. It just was. So, did I gain the necessary perspective? I think I did, but not in the way that I thought.
The thing that going up did was funnily enough to give me greater sense of grounding. Strange but true. Would I recommend you climb a tree for a better perspective. No. But if you were kindly disposed to complete such an act, I wouldn’t dissuade you in the least. Afterall, it’s the point of the exercise that’s important. You just have to know what the point of your doing it would mean to you. Me, I’m a tree climber from way back!
