Angel Oak

There exists in the low country of the Southeast, an aged tree. A tree known as the Angel Oak. The Angel Oak is said to be 65 feet tall, over 25 feet around and, wait for it... over 1,500 years old. The Angel Oak is a live oak - a still living, breathing, growing live oak.

Around the time of this aged oak's purported sprouting, Justinian was the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, silkworms had only just begun to be cultivated (by Byzantine humans) to produce silk, St. Benedict (near and dear to my own heart) was busy founding the Monte Cassino Monastery in Italy and the first pandemic of the bubonic plague hit Constantinople (now Istanbul).

These were the times of King Arthur, Beowulf, Gregory the Great and Mohammad. This was when one tiny acorn took root and sprouted in sandy soil in what is now South Carolina. Maybe its continued existence today tells us that the larger trees around it fell down at the precise times at which it needed to expand and use more space but not so early as to expose it too harshly to the elements. Maybe it tells us that there was never a single year of weather since sometime around 500 A.D. that this individual vegetative structure couldn't withstand.

Think of the bazillions of acorns this single tree has produced. Think of the amount of carbon it has drawn down from our (troubled) atmosphere. Think of the plethora of birds that have nested in its branches, the ants that have traversed millions of miles along its bark, the countless other living things who have used it as shelter, a landmark, food.

These days, we can think of the thousands of humans who have made the trip to see this magnificent being. To take photos of it (plural, because one photo will not do, cannot even include the entire expanse of the tree). To eat a lunch or have a soda under its shade. These days, the tree is surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire. It has visiting hours. It has beams and rods propping up its various drooping parts. It has a gift shop. It has signs that say please do not sit, please do not carve, please do not climb. People do these things anyway. Maybe not the carving so much, but sitting and climbing. It is irresistible.

If a tree can be majestic, then this one certainly is. I can think of no better word to describe it.

Majestic