The old oak tree

The Old Oak Tree – recorded in conversation at Chatelherault Country Park on 12 June 2022.

We set off from the Chatelherault visitor centre towards the Cadzow Oaks site, with Christina showing me some of the huge trees felled by Storm Arwen along the way.  We had hardly gone any distance before we were stopped in our tracks by a plump chaffinch singing noisily on the outer limbs of a large pine!  It’s really easy to forget that you’re so close to Glasgow at Chatelherault.  The heavily wooded river gorge fell away steeply on our left as we walked first along the side of the hill and then climbed up towards the earth works site that is the home of the oaks.

Christina’s story illustrates the way in which artistic creativity and inspiration directly from nature can complement and augment each other.  We’re joining the story as she reflects on feeling uncertain of direction in her professional life, on a timely injection of inspiration, and a transformative encounter with an ancient oak that brought her back to her childhood connection with nature.

C: So the thing is, I was having a crisis, not really knowing where my job and my professional life were going, and I was feeling a bit lost.  I had signed up for some Orff Schulwerk training - I didn’t really read about who was going to lead the training, I just I thought that whatever happens, it’s going to be a Saturday well spent; singing and dance and having a laugh.

And then it turned out to be an amazing trainer called Angelica Wolf.  To me she was like a fairy, because she could dance, she could sing, she could play, she did everything so well and she was very communicative.  She could get you from your guts!  It was amazing the way that she made you……..she made you copy things, she made you imagine you are a king or a queen and she convinced you that you really were!  It was very inspiring.  Her whole course was about nature, and it just flicked something on in me - it switched on a very old connection that I have had with nature since I was a very young child.  I used to not really like to be with people, I used to prefer to be with our dogs, or in the garden quietly doing something - I always felt a bit weird, and nature was always my best friend.

One central point of the course was about an old oak tree, and especially about waking up the old oak tree after a cold winter, the leaves coming out, the buds and awakening in Spring.  It was so beautiful for me, it was much more than I thought it could be.

A few days later I came to this park – by complete chance! – and I found this oak.  I was walking here and just came across them – I suddenly saw the oaks that she was talking about.  It was winter, and I could see the buds on them – now it’s really late spring so you can see lots of leaves - but back then I saw them looking almost dead and just showing little buds…….it was so magical to see them awakening!  I got my camera and I took a picture of one of these oaks that I thought was the most amazing one -  it was that one there.  It was AMAZING!  So big and so dead looking!  I sent an email to the course leader about that, she was really happy that I found my old oak tree.  So that is my oak tree.

This old oak tree trunk was already split open, and now it’s split even more – but it’s still alive.  It’s unbelievable how this absolutely hollow tree can be alive!  And still standing – people are trying to help it of course – but it’s still there.  It was hollow already and now you can see that someone had set fire to the centre of the tree.  So now the oak tree is really in a bad shape, completely split in the middle, but still so many things live in it, and the park is clearly making an effort to keep it alive as long as possible.

On that first day I saw the oak, I could see the little buds coming out and that was so incredible for me – it was like my own connection with nature!  Dying on the outside because I had completely forgotten my connection with nature, but inside, that connection was still alive.

All of this experience switched on something really important in me and ended up changing a lot of things in my life.  Now I am studying conservation, and absolutely jumping into my connection with nature again.  I think everything started for me when I saw this tree standing, the day after the training session that was rooted in nature.  I felt a connection with this tree and it has really changed things for me.  I think this tree is really amazing!

I can show you the original picture of the tree – it was the end of the winter so it’s only close by that you can see the buds.  You can see it is hollow but it was one trunk.  There was nothing holding it up, it was in much better shape than it is just now.  Now the park are trying to hold it up, which means they can see the value of this tree, so I know it’s valuable to other people as well, not just me.  So this is my tree story!

The Old Oak tree in winter

JK: You mentioned that you loved spending time in nature when you were small - does it feel good that you’ve come full circle, you’re studying conservation now?…..

C: Yes it does!

JK: Are you hoping to take that somewhere specific, or see where it leads you?

C: Aaaah, I think I’m going to see where it leads me, I don’t have any plan about it.  I had this feeling that I had to do something.  The climate change and the obvious destruction of nature that we see with our own eyes – I saw it when I was only a child.  I have been an ecologist since I was very very young, you know, and for me it’s unquestionable that this is happening, even before I saw the scientific proof of it happening. 

I think that I needed to do something, and actually studying conservation was the best thing I could do as it transformed my true anxiety into rational thinking.  Helped me to think ‘what can we actually practically do?’, because being crazy and panicking about something is not going to help at all.  And I was panicking and crazy!  So I wasn’t helpful – to me or to nature, being like that.  So now when you study things you see what we can practically do to help.  Then you start understanding that even some of the most well intended people are still copying really old ecological practices that are proven not to work.  You could be the person that goes there and changes that – let’s not do this that way, but that way, in this field….maybe you make all the difference for that field.  That’s what you can do to help as one lonely human being……..but if lots of human beings try?  That’s my motto, as one unit we cannot do anything but when you start doing, you find other people doing the same and suddenly you find you are not alone at all.  So, your actions do matter.

JK: And what about your family and childhood -  did you grow up in quite a rural area?

C: No it was very urban, but my father’s family was rural, he’s very connected to his family so every weekend we would go to an aunt’s house or my grandma’s house, there was always somewhere they we replanting something, they had a little farm.  I just loved to be there, every weekend - I was much happier there than in the city, no doubt about it - and at school I was always to be found in the garden, making a hole in the ground or something!  Despite being brought up in a city I was always very connected to nature.

JK: We are both musicians and I wondered whether you enjoy playing outside and whether you think that brings particular benefits to us as performers, and to the audience?

C: There’s something funny about concert halls I think, there are some exceptions, but most of them you have no way of seeing the daylight.  You go inside and suddenly it’s night time.  It’s always night time, in the morning, in the afternoon, it’s night time, and suddenly you come out and it’s too bright, it’s a shock to the system.  I do know one hall in Portugal where they can open all the windows out from the stage, gigantic windows and you can see the park, this is the only one I know where you can actually see outside from the concert hall stage.  It’s a pity because we are really detaching art from nature and what’s going on outside.  Sometimes that’s good because you are creating a very particular atmosphere that is separate to the outside world.  But doing it all the time creates a disconnection between the art and nature.  I try to work on music with my pupils outdoors whenever I can.

JK: Thank you so much for sharing your story!  And thank you for bringing me here to see and spend time with these ancient oaks.  What a wonderful discovery.

The old oak tree today