My mirror neurons vibe with trees: On anthropometaphorizing

The branches of trees conduct the wind, like a maestro moving to music.

The wind curls around branches and causes branches to move.

Arms. Legs. Limbs. Moving. Breath. Undulation.

That feeling where one’s mirror neurons fire when looking at a tree.

It just occurred to me that I feel “fellow-feeling” with the movements of trees in an embodied way. Standing there, feeling their movement in my body. Without wind, their movement is too slow. Their connection below ground, and while I feel it deeply, metaphorically, I don’t feel in my body. At least, not entirely. I feel and I don’t feel their relation to sunlight. It’s an intellectual, emotional connection but not truly embodied. Is the warm sun on my skin the same as photosynthesis? That’d be too anthropomorphic. Maybe anthropometaphorizing.

I stand. Trees stand. But trees stand in one place always, despite their multiple connections to other trees and the wider world.

Do I feel the treeness in my body? More than I feel a relation to buildings, except through a process of what I’ve just termed anthropometaphorizing. I feel closer to a mountain than a skyscraper. But closer to a tree than a plant. I feel the treeness deeper in my body than I feel squirrelness. That doesn’t feel very deep. Is it my spine? My ambition to be more like a tree than a squirrel? My relation with gravity? Gravitas? To have the slow, rooted wit of a tree? Its apparent understanding and perspective. (Except you, aspen. Settle down, you.) To live in time as a tree lives? To live in interrelation? I realize that whatever the cause, I do feel a connection to trees in an embodied way. I could turn into a tree and feel satisfied (or so my body thinks) whereas a squirrel—not so much.

I made the above image by weaving glyphs representing the conducting patterns conductors use to mark varous time signatures into these images of a tree. Are the marks the paths of squirrels and birds? Of moving branches, the paths of the wind? The route my eyes take as I look, the curling of scent or light?

Thanks to Jo Ianni for sending me the images of the conducting patterns. I used to conduct a choir and a band every day for nearly ten years when I was a middle school music teacher.