The Tree That Grew a Loop

How every setback can be the start of something new.

Lately I was on a beautiful little ski touring vacation with some wonderful friends in the Jämtland mountains. Apart from the stunning scenery, my most memorable experience was one particular tree.

It's a tree that must have broken off a long time ago — through a storm, by a human, or by an animal. The cause is difficult to tell now. But it was clearly visible that it had broken such that the top part was hanging down. A casual observer would have believed that this tree was going to die.

However, a branch of this top piece — hanging down and only connected through some thin pieces of fibre to its stem — continued growing. It grew vertically to emerge as the new lifeline: the new stem of the tree.

The result now looks very peculiar — like a tree that decided to grow a full loop before growing upward again. It struck me for its funny looks, but it stayed in my memory for the seed it planted in my mind.

If this tree, back then when it broke, had thought about its situation — or if an observer had considered its fate — they would have thought: "What an unfortunate little life this was. Sad it had to end like this."

But it turned out it wasn't a little life, and it didn't end. It lasted many more years. The tree is rather small, but that's just because trees grow incredibly slowly up in the north — there aren't many big trees around here, and this one is probably more than twenty years old. It likely still has many years ahead of it.

This has become my favourite metaphor — one that I want to keep in mind whenever I go through a tough time. This tree had a much tougher time than I ever will, and it emerged as such a spectacular example of nature's resilience.

A Second Tree

Coincidentally, when visiting a friend at his cabin in the woods close to Stockholm recently, he pointed out his favourite tree to me — one that showed a very similar story.

It was a tree that had fallen sideways, its roots lifted out of the ground, with only one side still having some connection with the earth. If I were to find a tree like this, I would easily consider it a great source of firewood — but luckily nobody did. It turns out that the branches pointing upward after the tree fell are now growing tall into the sky, and the branches pointing down seem to be developing into some kind of roots. This tree did not only continue living — in some way it even emerged as multiple trees.

Beyond Nature

This is a metaphor not only for life, but just as well for our society and economy. A failed government could seem like a disaster at first, but emerge as giving rise to wonderful new reforms. An idea that is written off by everyone could years later prove true. And a friendship that falls apart could grow into a friendship stronger than it has ever been before.

All we need is hope and patience to observe all the surprises the world has to offer.