The Healing Power of Third Spaces: My neighbor cut down his Japanese maple

Nature cures—not the physician.

Hippocrates

This morning I woke up to the unpleasant sound of a saw cutting down a lovely Japanese Maple tree in my neighbor’s small garden. This very pleasant man who is a “graphic artist” has been, to our amazement and dismay, systematically desecrating all of his bushes into the shape of unidentifiable stumps. His most recent carnage, however, is outrages. Running outside, I asked the man in charge of the tree cutting team what was going on? His response, this from a man who cuts down trees for a living, was to shake his head and say “I do not understand it; healthy Maple trees like this add value to your property.”

I often tell an old Sufi story in my courses on aging and health: A young prince was riding by on a horse when he spotted an old man struggling to plant a small tree. He stopped his horse and got down to help the old man. After the tree was planted, the prince said: “Agah why are you struggling to plant trees at a time of your life when you should be sitting in the shade of a tree?” The old man responded:  “I love sitting in the shade of a tree, but someone planted all the trees that have given me comfort during my life. As long as I am able, I want to plant trees for others to enjoy.”

The word paradise comes from the old Persian language. Paradise is visualized as a natural place filled with trees and flowers and streams. It is seen as peaceful place that promotes, not affluence or luxury, but contentment and happiness.  When I was a child in Iran walking to school in the dusty streets of Teheran, there were hundreds of newly planted small trees being watered daily, painstakingly by hand, in order to ensure their survival. These trees helped fight the endless pollution, they cleaned the air, just enough to make the walk a little more pleasant. The oldest tree in the world still lives in Iran.  This cypress tress is in the Yazd province, is from the dawn of civilization, it is 4000 years old, a shrine, a national monument. It is probably the oldest living thing in Asia.

In my work as a psychologist studying health and happiness in middle and later adulthood, there is a very interesting and promising area of study, eco psychology. Eco psychology focuses on the relationship between people and nature. The premise of eco-psychology is that there is a connection between all living things, when our connection with nature is severed we cannot thrive, we become unhappy, unhealthy, we lose sight of our true selves. All too often the importance and healing nature of the relationship between people and nature gets lost. Clearly my neighbor has lost his sight of this relationship.

When we stop to smell the flowers, walk up a hill or mountainside, sit in a field, the experience humbles us, it is also restorative and healing. After the frustration of my neighbor’s senseless act, the only thing I could do was take a walk in the park.  In the words of Søren Kierkegaard

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk.
Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being,
and walk away from every illness.
I have walked myself into my best thoughts,
and I know of no thought so burdensome
that one cannot walk away from it.