Trees often get represented as bringing their own feeling and atmosphere, in movies and fictional settings, misty, foreboding, creepy, and sometimes downright scary. The Blair Witch Project springs to mind there, and many others where the trees are part of the sinister plot. Poltergeist being another film that came to mind, of the trees coming alive and coming through the windows. Like I said, there are countless horror films that use a wooded setting or trees at night to create a sinister feeling. But why is it that they work so well for that? In daytime and sunshine, trees and woods can be quite wonderful and relaxing, creating a feeling of calm and safety. Strange how just a change of lighting can completely alter that.

Fairy Tales often feature forests and woodland as their settings, at least in part, ones like Hansel and Gretal, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, and I’m sure others.

Twin Peaks – the whole series had a strange theme running through it, yes, aside from the rather strange overall theme that seems to easily created by David Lynch. But the observation early on of the Douglas-fir made me take note of the trees (as was probably the point), a few scenes in forests, and the log lady, carrying around her special log to tell her the secrets of the what gets seen by the trees. And later we had more sinister forest scenes followed later in the series by scene depicting a portal within the trees, and talk of the white and black lodges. So the trees to me were quite pivotal in that whole scenario, not just for atmosphere, but almost as if they were part of it, or maybe just bystanders to the malevolence, soaking in the darkness and holding on to it.

Lord of The Rings – The Ents, Fengorn Forest and the woods of Lothlórien. Strange areas of ancient forest, under bewitchment and being watched over by things unseen to a normal mortal eye. The Ents being the shepherds of the forest to keep watch and guarded with protecting them.

And in my article about Giants, Trees, and discussing both in A Giant Debate, I have given thought to the idea that the large trees led to something above, like the idea in Jack and the Beanstalk. But now I consider the opposite, that the roots of the trees could have gone as far down as the trunk did above, and became caverns, tunnels and what we would now call an underground city perhaps as found In The Old Underground.

So, is it possible that trees harbour something else, the network they connect to accessing a different energy, a deeper energy from within the earth. One that we as people are infrequently connected to as we are no longer ‘grounded’ as we once were. And maybe it’s an energy that is limited now, with smaller trees on the surface to try and harness it, constantly having their underground network disrupted, interfered with or severed entirely. But despite all the changes and challenges that appear to be on the horizon, just as with the tree roots that still live, nature finds a way…

(c) K Wicks