Ihsan

Thursday, November 10, 2005

signs in a forest


The Coastal Redwoods are perhaps the most remarkable trees around. Hiking through an old growth forest - recalling that some of these trees are thousands of years old, is to take a walk through the ages of our planet.

The outer bark are soft, allowing the trees to easily absorb moisture, the core, however, is one of the hardest. This strong hard core of the trees was heavily used for housing construction in California during the 19th and all the way upto mid to late 20th centuries. As a result, there are now only about 3-5% of the original old growth forests left standing.

These trees can grow upwards of 250 feet tall! Given this size, one would expect deep roots to keep them standing for hundreds of years. But the roots are shallow, and can be easily viewed while walking through the forest. The redwoods remain standing because they grow in groves, or “communities” and the roots are inter-connected with each other. This inter-dependence, and connectedness at the root allow them to remain standing strong. If the roots were not literally tied up with each other, the trees would fall within a few years, especially since they grow so close to the ocean, and are exposed to all of the elements.

Perhaps this is a sign of Allah we might reflect upon…

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