Even this deep into winter, the trees are one of my favorite parts of our mountains. Stands of towering, majestic aspens, their greenish-white bark stark against thick green grass or blending into a backdrop of snow. Our quiet, dense conifers, shading out my walking paths and shrugging off snow. Willows and dogwoods hugging the banks of Gore Creek and the Eagle River.
If you share my love of trees, you might bemoan the fact that tree-related holidays only crop up a couple times of year: Arbor Day in April, certainly, or Earth Day in the same month. (Maybe, if you’re feeling generous, you’ll count Christmas.) But I’ve got great news for you—a way to spread your celebration of trees through the year. Though the (solar) New Year is already a distant memory, we are coming up on a very special kind of new year: Tu BiShvat, the Jewish New Year for the trees, which will fall this year on Thursday, February 13.
The holiday, whose name translates literally to “the 15th of [the Jewish month] Shevat,” has biblical origins: it emerged as a way to standardize the “birthday” of every tree to make it easier for farmers to follow biblical rules about when to harvest fruit trees. But over time it has evolved into other forms, including a modern Jewish Earth Day, a day of ecological consciousness. In other words, another day to celebrate our trees!
You don’t have to be Jewish to take a day to appreciate the trees. While some modern Tu BiShvat practices include tree planting or a Seder (ritual meal), it can also be much more simple. You can take a snowy nature walk, commit to doing some volunteer trail work, write an ode to a tree or draw your favorite tree, or advocate for local, national, and global climate action to protect our forests for generations to come. We certainly can all take a day to meditate on how our actions impact the trees that surround and nourish us.
Here in Eagle County, trees do more than paint an iconic mountain landscape. Quick-growing aspens, with their dappled groves and nutritious, pain-killing bark, provide critical habitat for hundreds of species and help reforest mountainsides after a fire. Water-loving trees like willows stabilize the banks of our rivers and streams, preventing erosion and pollutant runoff. They are also an important food source for beavers and moose, among other animals! The Colorado blue spruce, lodgepole pine, and other dense evergreens shelter numerous animals, enrich the soil, and give birds and squirrels the food they need to survive a long winter. All of our trees remove carbon from the atmosphere, cleaning our air and quietly helping us move toward a healthier future.
Tu BiShvat reminds us that it is our responsibility to steward the land, not just benefit from it. We celebrate our trees while they still lie under a blanket of snow to remind us that our actions today toward nature will take root tomorrow. The seeds of stewardship and sustainability we plant now will grow and create change in the future, just as our trees that seem so dormant now will blossom in the spring to come.
Ella Spungen is a Naturalist at Walking Mountains whose idea of a good time is a tree birthday party.
Sources:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989419305803
https://jewishunpacked.com/how-to-celebrate-tu-bishvat/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_BiShvat
https://www.bpl.org/blogs/post/the-origins-and-practies-of-holidays-tu-bishvat-and-valentines-day/
https://mjhnyc.org/blog/tu-bishvat-the-new-year-of-trees/