As noted, each genre has particular goals, tools, and means by which to accomplish its purpose, and the varying usage of trees throughout presents a mirror and window. As a mirror, we may see ourselves and our relations with trees and forests more clearly, but as through a window we may catch a glimpse of the multifarious reality that is beyond our comprehension—a world that would leave any poet in a frenzy to capture in mere speech. But where words of trees and forests may fail, stories of faery, fantasy, and sci-fi might just succeed in giving the truth of trees and forests a form.

Tolkien understood myth to be “invention about truth” (Carpenter 1977:147), and, as noted previously, fantasy’s power is to form “images…of things not in the primary world.” A possible conclusion may be that fantasy and myth image truth we otherwise cannot see. This is precisely the value of exploring artistic contributions to shaping human perception of reality. It is an old tension, captured perfectly by Shakespeare:

The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

Even though the resulting habitations and names may be partial or even distorted, Tolkien believed that the fragment of light we do see is worthy of pursuit (Carpenter 1977:147). The imaging of reality, of our world and of our societies, of what it is to be human, is explored and perhaps grasped in the pages of story.

The question raised in the review of fairy tales is whether or not forests and trees are necessary for humanity to image itself. As a type of mirror, we see our societies in the forest, the families and individual selves in the trees, the interdependence, the necessity of each other, in a way that transcends symbol and metaphor. They are that. But they are not just that. The consciousness of forests, to borrow again from Tolkien, hints at something of the forests’ independence of humanity (and, perhaps, of Nature’s independence). As humans, we cannot fully control, define, or even predict the behaviour of forests (not to mention Nature). No more can we comprehensively classify the vast diversity of the age-old question, what is human?

The revelation of the forest—incomplete as it may appear to our rationally-ordered proclivities—is still a revelation. As Le Guin established, the desire to fully know is not only futile, it is premised on the lie that everything can be known and controlled, a lie that ultimately leads to its own destruction. Full, whole, thorough knowledge is beyond human. The striving to know is human. The reality the forest reflects in its shadows and sunbeams is ways of knowing that transcend words. For, instead of words, we are given an image.

Bibliography

Carpenter, H. 1977. J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. London: George Allen & Unwin.

Porteous, A. 2002. The Forest in Folklore and Mythology. Garden City, NY: Dover Publications.

Shakespeare, W. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene I, Lines 13-18.

Recommended reading, both of which are short, highly accessible books by excellent thinkers and writers:

Guite, Malcom. 2021. Lifting the Veil: The Imagination and the Kingdom of God. Square Halo Books.

Wolfe, Judith. 2024. The Theological Imagination: Perception and Interpretation in Life, Art, and Faith. Cambridge University Press

Words flow in endless streams, wind caught and torn,
Tearing the silence, spirit breathed and blown;
Words shape the world, reality’s forsworn,
Bent to form the mind within, without, sown
In the before, during, after of Time–
A construct all its own in phonemes bound
To authorities of tongue in odd rhyme
Of meaning given in all this world–round
And wound in the sound of this vast quiet
Void of still Nature: In sub-creation
Breath, the hope of a name to make it fit,
Of the Word to settle in elation
Anew the way, the truth, at last to renew,
The life out of chaos our words obscure.

Summary Review

Ursula Le Guin (1929-2018) presents a classic of sci-fi in her short story, The Word for World is Forest (originally published in 1972). The story exists in an imagined future our reality in a way that is stereotypical of the genre in the 20^th century. That is, Le Guin utilises the literary form to address contemporary issues through the unfamiliar Athsheans (Crowther 2006:173). Written during the Vietnam War, the author critiques the exploitation and abuse of other peoples and nature in the name of profit, and highlights the fallout of resistance, even when resistance is necessary.

The world of Athshe is split between water and forested islands, within which the Athshean peoples make their home as one with the forest. The colonial Terrans came to this world to log the wood, reclaiming (in their minds) the land from dark, and endless, forests, wilderness without value which turns men mad (Le Guin 2015:15). The dualistic nature of the Terran relation with the forest is reflective of one aspect of human-forest relations that was dominant in our recent history: nature is to be exploited and used by those who have power (Savi 2021:535). It is a philosophy which left the Terran homeworld a stripped, resource-barren world, driving them abroad to find other worlds to mine. This course is further justified by the meaninglessness of forest, as it has no value as it is, but must be turned into wood in order to be useful. In the Athshean mind, however, the world is the forest; it is the entirety of their lived-in experience, outside of which there is no world, no meaning (cf. Le Guin 2015:27). The extreme inversion of the Terran duality, in turn, illuminates the dangers of the Terran understanding.

The forests are the whole of Athshean reality and the individual species provide the fundamental framework to Athshean culture (e.g. tribes gain a name from trees, specific tree characteristics are aligned with particular societal roles, etc.; ibid 2015:35); the expressive interdependence of the forests and the people is further emphasised in the dream-time and world-time interwoven reality in which more of the forest is known than seen (ibid 2015:43; Savi 2021:549). The concept of knowledge, for example, is directly tied to the imagery of the forest: “No way was clear, no light unbroken, in the forest…. Revelation was lacking. There was no seeing everything at once, no certainty” (Le Guin 2015:25). This aside on epistemology is an invaluable image of how we imagine our knowledge; do we imagine we have the potential to know all? Or do we conceive of knowledge in a way that allows for limitations? Further on, we see that the boundary traversed in the narrative, the irrevocable change, is not between the forest and the city, nor the communities within and without, but when the new thing—killing—is brought from the dream-time to the world-time (ibid 127). What can be known moves from inconceivable to an enduring fact, permanently shaping reality. The change, or future, to the interwoven reality of the forest/world—the knowledge gained in that trespass—cannot be undone, although the killing ceases and the wounds heal.1

Analysis & Insights

Fairy tale forests and trees exemplify a type of agency and exist in unique time-spaces, and fantasy’s forests embody a tree culture and ethics according to their own world. But forests and trees in science fiction often serve as symbolic and/or metaphorical tools for the genre’s dominant purpose of social commentary. In Le Guin’s story, the destruction of the forests, and thus the Athshean society, is a metaphor for the rampant ecological fallout of the Vietnam War, playing out the dangerous philosophy that places Nature as an object to be used by humans in a strict, hierarchical power relation. The Athsheans are integral to their forest and, internally in the story, symbolise what Nature might do if pushed too far (cf. the ents at Isengard).

The forest is also more than the story, as we saw in fairy tales; in the Athshean relation to their world/forest in both dream-time and world-time, we see a concept that is not the product of sci-fi but also exists in our world: for example, the Senoi people of Malaysia, as Le Guin later learned (2015:8), and the Runa community in Ecuadar (Kohn 2013:13-14). These communities interact with the forest as an agent that must be engaged with in order for both to fulfil their created natures. Allowing this kind of reality challenges a strictly dualistic view which damages nature-human relations overall and offers an avenue to a society that lives in full consciousness of its interdependentness. If the forest cannot be constrained by human means, it imbues a respect and wariness that keeps the balance of power appropriately in human-forest relations.

The forest of Athshe is inseparable from its inhabitants, defining their culture, agency, place and ethics. As a direct parallel to human-nature relations of our time, the proffered image is not so much speaking to the role of the forest in the relationship but to the ethical responsibility of the humans. The Athsheans identify their wellbeing with the forest’s wellbeing; to care for one is to care for the other. Humans on Earth are likewise to value the well-being of the environment as necessary to their own good. Resistance to any movement or philosophy that challenges that equality is necessary (Le Guin does not explore the fallout of such resistance in Athshe beyond stating that it has caused a change).

The place of the forest is essentially the essence in Athshe, in that there is nothing apart from the forest. Te stripped land is a void, devoid of life, of meaning, it is a non-place. Tangibly and conceptually, the essence of the forest—the world—is seen in this comprehension of reality. It is a reality communicated through the dream-time wherein the forest agency comes to the fore, and thus in world-time the Athshean agents act upon the revelation of the dream-time dialogue. The very image of the world is the forest, interweaving every facet of the culture in and through the forest.

The epistemological commentary is of interest in considering societal reflections of ways of knowing. The forest ‘breaks up’ the sight-line, denying complete clarity, but while the Terrans abhor this veiling, the Athshean understand that it is a vision more true to reality. The dream-time/world-time duality is not an obscuring of what is—but a pathway to participating in the seen and unseen, and through that participation understanding (revelation) may be experienced and known. It is not the cut-and-dried knowledge sought in our post-Enlightenment society, but is more aligned with ways of knowing reality apart from reason.

Finally, the lament of Le Guin would seem to be that the reality influenced by such destructive knowledge is a world facing an unknown future, a reality uncertain and grievous. Though an act, or knowledge, be recognised and named as unlawful, or even evil, and the action ceased or the knowledge barred, the world is already changed. To ignore the past brings insanity, Le Guin prophesies—but that is the conclusion of her commentary. There is no vision for the Athsheans that imagines how to live into such an undreamed reality.

Bibliography

Crowther, D. 2006. The word for world is not forest. Social Responsibility Journal 2, 173–184.

Kohn, E. 2013. How forests think: Toward an anthropology beyond the human. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Le Guin, U. K. 2015. The Word for World is Forest. London: Gollancz.

Savi, M. P. 2021. Looking to Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest to find ways to respond to the dilemmas of the anthropocene. Ilha do Desterro A Journal of English Language Literatures in English and Cultural Studies 74, 533–551.

Summary Review

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973) has been called the father of fantasy for his genre-defining work, The Lord of the Rings (originally published 1954-1955). In contrast to fairy tales, which appear to occur in our world as it were but in a one dimensional reality, where there is no mark between the natural and supernatural (cf. Lock 2010:153, in which she quotes Luthi’s traits of the folktale), the world of fantasy is wholly other and it operates according to its own internal norms. As such, it is a type of our world. Further, while fairy tales often are metaphorical and characters personify abstractions, fantastical beings may reflect all the complexities of human nature (Hanks 2012:43).

Forests and trees in The Lord of the Rings are central throughout and too numerous to recount in full. A few highlights: trees are place markers (Tolkien 1976:320); their condition serves as an indicator of a society’s morality (ibid., 278); and they exhibit agency in shaping place (ibid., 125). Forests are the location for testing (ibid., 376); the means by which characters are brought to the appointed place (ibid., 519); and places of rest and restoration (ibid., 677). The forests and trees are signs of healthy, wholesome societies and individuals in Tolkien’s world and their destruction is a mark of the Enemy and his works. Ultimately, when the hobbits return to the Shire and confront the evil of Saruman’s treachery in their own land, the deepest grief is the knowledge that it would take generations for the glory of the Shire to be restored: the trees (ibid., 1060).

In Tolkien’s world, trees take on agency of their own (ibid., 129) and strive to enforce their own ethics upon the creatures who would limit their forests. Consider Old Man Willow who holds sway over the reaches of the Old Forest (ibid., 145) and Fangorn (Treebeard) who is a type of caretaker in his Forest. The trees hold a power and presence over other beings that cannot be ignored (ibid., 125); they shape experience with a deliberate awareness (ibid., 370).

Analysis & Insights

The forests and trees of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings contain similar characteristics to those in MacDonald’s fairy tales, but as features in fantasy they are also distinct. The power of fantasy, according to Tolkien, is to create “images…of things not in the primary world” and to make the secondary world believable internally (Hanks 2012:39), in order to provide “the healing gifts of recovery, escape and consolation” (Finseth 1997:42). The forests in Tolkien, like in fairy tale, are more than mere trees. They can be more than they are.

In Tolkien’s world, we see the Ents as the embodiment of the forest, who are not anthropocentric;¹ when they act, their power is far beyond the Men of Middle-Earth (cf. Finseth 1997:41, Tolkien 1976:590ff). Their ethical orientation is also tree-oriented: Treebeard proclaims Isengard will become a forest filled with trees, old and young (Tolkien 1976:610), creating a place that restores what was lost.

The forest in fantasy is also inside and outside, secure and treacherous, powerful and independent—in itself, not in relation to humanity. It is an image of what, in our world, is often ignored or dismissed, yet, drawing on the traditions that shape our understanding of forests—historical, biblical, and philosophical—Tolkien’s trees contain their own unique culture, agency, place, and ethics. In the history of Middle Earth, the arboreal traditions parallel ours, though more explicitly in that human-arboreal relations actively reclaim what was lost when the evil of Mordor is overthrown (in part by the actions of the trees themselves). The world of Men must take note and treat with them on agreed upon terms, or, it is implied, pay a similar price.

The arboreal-human dynamics are much more evident in Middle Earth than in fairy land, for here the various races of Tolkien’s world interact with each other as distinct entities, not abstractions. While trees are interpreted by readers as revered symbols or signs in Middle Earth (e.g. the White Tree of Gondor [Tolkien 1976:783, 1008])—this has often been noted as a reflection of the author’s environmental stance (Danielson 2021)—according to the internal nature of Middle Earth’s reality, it does not seem possible to reduce the trees and forests to mere signs or symbols, nor a black-and-white morality marker.^⁠2 For Tolkien, there seemed to be an almost intuitive grasp of 1) the necessary inter-dependenteness of humanity and the arboreal, wherein to destroy, mistreat, or overlook trees will eventually result in the implosion of the society and nature; the decay of Mirkwood may be an example of this. And 2) Tolkien notes in a letter that “forests are represented as awakening to consciousness of themselves” thus Lothlorian is beautiful because it is loved and the Old Forest is hostile because it has been mistreated (Tolkien 1972). This forest consciousness rejects the reduction to a morality symbolisation since the forests themselves are not passive objects reflecting the active humanoid societies of Middle Earth; they are shaped by how those communities treat them, and vice versa. When one prospers so does the other; when they mistreat each other, both are lessened. Forests reflect moral values, but that is only one element of their essence in the broader world.^⁠3

The arboreal world of Middle Earth may present a more holistic picture of human-arboreal relational reality (as opposed to that presented in fairy-tales), for, while the various species utilise wood for construction and fires, a healthy society engages not in destruction for its own sake and treats with each community for a mutual flourishing (e.g. Tolkien 1976:1016). This tenant may be central to imaging Tolkien’s perception of the relational dynamics among the species of Middle Earth, a principle that aligns with anthropology-beyond-the-human’s focus on recognising the mutual “becoming with” of human and non-human (Haraway 2008:244; Kirksey Helmreich 2010:546; Ingold 2013:20-21). Anthropology, overall, seeks to ‘educate’ the human perception of the world, and the nexus, or contact zone, in which given species interact is where the research focuses to see how each species ‘becomes’ itself in and through the relations with others (Ingold 2011:229). Tolkien provides an example of what this kind of mutual ‘becoming with’ looks like on the societal level.

Tolkien’s arboreal creatures have a unique mythology which goes back to the creation of their world. The peoples of Middle Earth seem to be aware of this (the Elves at least are, and the other races have heard the stories) and perhaps the imago arboris—images of the Two Trees of Valinor—inspires the same type of wild dynamics we find in our world around the treatment of those we believe, according to a (statistically) dominant Creation myth, who are imago Dei: human-on-human relations. This does not elevate trees to the level of deity in Tolkien’s world, but aligns them with that which is the essence of light, life, and goodness. The correlation to our word is too obvious to dismiss, particularly in light of environmental work which has shown this seemingly inherent nature—fashioning a vision for this is a challenge. These types of essential relations may be worked out more clearly in fantasy and from there perhaps we can draw on the patterns of those worlds to fashion a vision for ours.

Further Reading

• Bergman, Frank. 1977. “The Roots of Tolkien's Tree: The Influence of George MacDonald and German Romanticism Upon Tolkien's Essay `On Fairy-Stories'.”Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, Winter 1977, Vol. 10, No. 2, Faerie, Fantasy and Pseudo-mediaevalia in Twentieth-Century Literature (Winter 1977), pp. 5-14. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24780280.

• Cunningham, Michael. 2006. “In the Shadow of the Tree: A study of the motif of the White Tree in the context ofJRR Tolkien's Middle-earth.” Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society, No. 44 (August 2006), pp. 3-8.
  See the journal site for additional articles on Tolkien and related work: https://journals.tolkiensociety.org/mallorn/issue/view/45.

• Conrad-O’Briain, Helen and Gerard Hynes (eds). 2013. Tolkien: The Forest and the City. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
  This is a remarkable collection of essays covering a diverse range of topics related to Tolkien’s trees/forests and cities, ranging from Middle Earth etiquette and the relation of hobbit architecture to the Arts and Crafts movement, to the creation of speculative cities and cultural materialism.

• Ordway, Holly. 2023. Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography. Elk Grove Village, Il: Word on Fire Academic.
  This biography of Tolkien focuses on his faith, but in her tracing of this aspect of Tolkien’s life, the place of trees and forests also comes through.

Bibliography

Danielson, S. 2021. ‘To trees all Men are Orcs’: The environmental ethic of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The New Shadow’. Tolkien Studies 18, 179–194.

Finseth, C. R. 1997. Tolkien’s Trees. Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society 35, 37–44.

Hanks, Jr., T. 2012. Tolkien’s ‘Leaf by Niggle’: A blossom on the tree of tales. Journal of Inklings Studies 2, 23–48.

Haraway, D. J. 2016. The companion species manifesto: dogs, people, and significant otherness. In Manifestly Haraway(eds) D. J. Haraway & C. Wolfe, 91–108. University of Minnesota Press (available on-line: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt1b7x5f6.5).

Ingold, T. 2011. Being alive: essays on movement, knowledge, and description. Oxon: Routledge.

––––––– 2013. Anthropology beyond humanity. Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 38, 5–23

Kirksey, S. E. & S. Helmreich 2010. The emergence of multispecies ethnography. Cultural Anthropology 25, 545–576.

Lock, S. 2010. Narrative strategy: The role of woods and forests in George MacDonald’s fairy tales. American, British and Canadian Studies 15, 148–161.

Tolkien, J. R. R. June 30, 1972. [339. Letter to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph, 1972] Retrieved from, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, 1981, H. Carpenter (ed). New York City, NY: HarperCollins

––––––– 1976. The Lord of the Rings. London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.

¹ Much may be said about the gender dynamics as reflected in the role of the Entwives, among other female characters in Tolkien’s work, but that is an essay unto itself, of which Potter and Byrne have considered in their article, “Why do trees need herding? J.R.R. Tolkien’s mastery of trees in The Lord of the Rings (2022). For this essay, I am focused on the internal structure of the world, and not seeking to evaluate it by our cultural values (feminist or otherwise).

² That would be more reminiscent of how science fiction utilises symbols and metaphors to create a social commentary.

³ An interesting thought arose in the course of this review of tress and forests in Middle Eart: could the trees (also) be sacramental in substance? A sign points to something, a symbol represents something, but a sacrament is both sign, symbol, and simultaneously the real presence of that to which it points and represents. In Tolkien’s Middle Earth the Two Trees of Valinor exist in the land of the Valar, where the first People, the Elves, were created and originally dwelt. If sacramental, then the essence of the Valar, light, life and being, and all that is good in the world, is embodied in the trees. It may follow that the sacramental act is found in the intersection of forest-other (elves/dwarves/men/etc.), and the nature of that relation determines the outcome.

The first genre under consideration is fairytale, distinct from fantasy and sci-fi. Fairytales, also termed folktales (there is an overlap in the terminology in the research), have several features that set them apart from other genres. It’s worthwhile to keep them in mind in order to understand fairytale forms and how they function, and, in addition, these characteristics provide a point of reference for evaluating and translating human-arboreal relations from one world to another. It was the father of folktale studies, 20^th century literary theorist Max Lüthi, who established five defining characteristics in his seminal work, The European Folktale: Form and Nature (1986)1: one-dimensionality, depthlessness, abstraction, isolation, and sublimation. In the specific example considered here, the defining features will be kept in mind for understanding the arboreal creations in the tales. 

George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a Scottish writer known as, among other things, the last, modern fairytale writer. In this, his tales (written throughout his life) are an ideal exemplar of the fairytale genre as their author is known and may be studied in light of the ideas concurrent to his context. Trees and/or forests appear throughout all of MacDonald’s writings, but in his fairytales they are subversively central: “If there were no forests in these tales, there would be no story” (Lock 2010:160).  The forests serve as the locus of many of MacDonald’s short fairytales: it is the world within which the subject enters and then is guided by the nature of the forest. As all things are in fairytale, the forest is an abstraction of our reality, wherein time and distance are non-existent (progression is communicated through the tasks the hero completes on his quest) and features are one-dimensional and without depth. There is no description of the forest (or any character) as such, for there is no sentiment nor attribution for abstractions. What we are left with is an ideal. 

MacDonald’s ideal of the forest is that of the European folktale, drawn from medieval romantic literature, whose arboreal antecedents I summarise in short as they are foundational to understanding both his works and our contemporary conceptualisations of trees and forests. The roots of the European forests are found in that continent’s historical laws, the biblical narrative, and the classical philosophers (Saunders 1993:1). From the historical developments, various ideas came to be associated with the term “forest” including the wild and wooded lands, the province of royalty, an essential economic resource, and, overall, a separate place with laws unto itself (Saunders 1993:1-102). The biblical wilderness came to be associated with the European concept of wilderness, desert to forest, and adds to the historical the following. The forest is a place outside civilization, solitary, the meeting place with the divine and therefore the place of spiritual testing (Saunders 1993:10-19). Finally, the philosophical tradition is woven into both the historical and biblical concepts, compounding “forest” with the Greek concept of chaos, or disorder. But when translated into the Latin, philosophers took this concept as the source from which order, creation may arise (Saunders 1993:19-24). 

Now, in MacDonald’s fairytales, we see that the forest is a literal location in that world, but simultaneously the boundary between worlds (e.g. between Giantland and “the country of common people”, MacDonald 1999:81). The association of the forest wilderness with the meeting place of the supernatural might be seen here; if it is a liminal place in our world, in the fairytale it is the sublimation of that ideal, the ideal form, but hyperbolic in the one-dimensionality of the fairytale. Therein the reader may feel a tension between the clashing of two worlds, where the natural and the supernatural exist on the same plane. Further, if the forest is a means of escape and protection in MacDonald’s fairytale, outside the bounded civilised world, the very concept of space is subverted in the absence of depth. Fairytale objects are not multi-dimensional, but depthless. But the forest is not without purpose or form, it retains the power of transformation, to move from disorder to order, and mystery—where the result may not be the expectation. The forest is an unspoken place of hope, for therein and through it, subjects may find a better reality than what they left behind, outside.

In this MacDonald plays with the inside and outside nature of the forest (Saunders 1993:11). It is outside the city, the place of civilization and security, of stability and assurance, but the city is also static and given to corruption. Anything might happen in the unknown. The forest is the traditional wilderness wherein one is subject to dangers and temptations, but as MacDonald’s tellings reflect, the forest is also the hermit’s wilderness of spiritual renewal, and indeed, one of his characters, Little Daylight, undergoes a physical transformation and ultimate resurrection, figuratively and literally, in the forest (MacDonald 1993:163-4; Saunders 1993:12). The fairytale forest expresses its dual nature in abstraction, it is a one-dimensional plane wherein all that occurs within the forest are distinctly isolated events; each inciting incident is singular and never recalled to mind. As a result, the fairytale forest weaves motifs (repeated themes, such as courtship, coming of age, birth, death, etc) into a pure, idealised form presented clearly in isolation; each character, each object, is a stranger to itself and to each other (Lüthi 1986:43).

This is the precise conflation of natures the forest embodies throughout the literature, both in fairytale and in our histories (Saunders 1993:10). While it may be unreal and impossible in our world, a power of the fairytale is to abstract these concepts and present the sublime through the deceptively simple. The forest is both inside and outside, embodying more than its components, as MacDonald masterly illustrates in Daylight’s prince’s cursed wanderings (MacDonald 1993:155). Time may flow or not, the rhythms of change reversed or stopped. In a further play on the outside/inside motif, in The Giant’s Heart, the children run into the tree: within it is the escape route and the running sap the joyful sign that freedom is near (MacDonald 1993:86). The tree becomes not only the border between in and out, but the means of transversing the border in safety. The truncated motif feature of the fairytale is exhibited in this particular tree, an embodiment of a form that changes the solidity of our idea into a fluid every-tree.

Analysis & Insights

In MacDonald’s fairytales, the narrative enters into the forest, becoming part of the border and the place itself. Herein the essence of the forest’s agency is expressed, for this unique time-place exists within the one-dimensionality of a fairytale where there is no division between the natural and the supernatural (cf. Lock 2010:153), nor between the human and the non-human. The forest is and its nature and being are no more notable in the fairytale than the witch who shows up to curse the princess at her christening (Lüthi 1986, chapter 1). The agency of the forest is a given, within the world of faerie. 

What is less explicit in the fairytale forest may be the type of cultural meanings we expect, based on our world, to be attached to forests, but this absence is consistent with how fairytales work. As fairytale characters typically personify the abstractions of our world, the cultural meanings attached to tree or forest symbolism and characteristics are not inherently necessary. The forest is a being that operates by the laws of faerie land, not the human world, it is not, in MacDonald’s short fairytales, personified, for the forest is not a person; and while in another genre the characters may marvel at this type of a forest, it is reflective of both one-dimensionality and isolation, two of Lüthi’s marks of a folktale (Lüthi 1986: 4, 37; Saunders 2010:153-4).

The agency and power of forests seem to exist, in these fairy tales, as independent of the relational forces which generally define human-nature interactions in our world. That is, while landscape influences the narrative, and mountains and lakes are found in the topography, the forest—in some ways—is the exclusively active agent in contrast to the central human characters who are personified abstractions.3 The forest of fairytale is more than the story itself, which could be taken as a challenge to our understanding of forests and trees in our world. Their space and time varies, the inside and outside coexist even as they distinctly embody both. 

MacDonald’s fairytales embody an interdependence in that the story—their world—would not exist if not for the forest. Perhaps it may be taken as a mirror image of our world, wherein in the agents (including the forest) are reversed to their right relations: our contemporary communities, in the developed world, may assign trees and forests a superficial aesthetic role, condemning them to “nice”4 features of landscape, but such reduction leads to the lessening—and eventual implosion—of the society that sees the natural world as irrelevant non-beings who are not essential to human flourishing. Humans form the world, and the world forms the human.5 This interdependence is a consistent truncated motif of the fairy tale genre (cf. Lock 2010:154, again drawing on Luthi’s analysis of folktale); it is subtle, unstated, yet this essence of the forest shapes the very nature of reality. 

With this as a point of reference, a comparison to the human-arboreal (and nature) relations in today’s global society result in a stark contrast. The structuring of human society reflects beliefs about reality. The view that nature exists for humanity to use (and abuse) however best serves the capitalist engine grew to dominance beginning in the industrial revolution, involving deforestation, pollution of water sources, over-farming croplands, mishandling manufacturing by-products, and so on. It may be reflected in quotidian rhythms of today’s globalised society, from the day-to-day use of one-time utensils and the need for vast waste management infrastructure, to societal pressure to constantly keep up with status markers such as the “right” vehicle or the newest model iPhone—the former models being discarded. The demand for these end-products ripples upstream to maintain the industries that produce them.  The central value is individual desire and well-being, with minimal consideration for the impact on future generations, nor the concurrent impact on the societies who have been reduced to the producers of consumer products to the detriment of their own flourishing. This one-way stream of use and cast-off production is a thorough denial of the interdependent reality woven into the warp and weft of fairytales as seen in the inherent essence of the fairytale forests.

There are of course other societies, both earlier in our history and today in many non-developed societies that relate to the arboreal world differently. Trees are a near-universal presence past and present in societies around the world; they are used to represent political relationships, as symbols and actors in coming-of-age ceremonies, as metaphors for humanity and a way to image knowledge, and so on (Rival 1998). In such communities, trees are active agents in the life of the society, necessary for the societal structure to continue. They are not damaged or destroyed, a relationship that is often reflective of the society-nature dynamic overall.

It is apparent that for humanity, trees are essential to wrestling with how we understand ourselves; denying that, one wonders if the end will not merely result in costs to the environment but a confusion, an obscuring, of humanity’s ability to image itself. The human story may not exist without the forests either.

Bibliography

Lock, S. 2010. Narrative strategy: The role of woods and forests in George MacDonald’s fairy tales. American, British and Canadian Studies 15, 148–161.

Lüthi, M. (1986). The European Folk Tale: Form and Nature. Trans. John D. Niles. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

MacDonald, G. 1999. The Complete Fairy Tales (ed U. C. Knoepflmacher). New York City, NY: Penguin Books.

Rival, L. (ed) 1998. The social life of trees: anthropological perspectives on tree symbolism. Oxford: Berg.

Saunders, C. J. 1993. The Forest of Medieval Romance: Avernus, Broceliande, Arden. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.

This is the first post in a series on human-arboreal1^⁠ relations in literature, based on several essays from last term’s course work in social anthropology. The first term is finally done, therefore I am able to catch up on posts here and prepare this series!

The inspiration for the idea came from the assignment to explore contributions of literary anthropology to research. There are two parts to the sub-discipline of literary anthropology: 1) the ways literature may provide anthropological insights; and 2) the writing of anthropological literature, i.e. literary tools and means anthropologists use to communicate their research. My focus is on the first, anthropological insights that may be gained from literature^⁠,2 specifically regarding human-arboreal relations. Since there is no comparable, existing study on trees in the Hebrew Bible, my intent is to explore what might be (or has already been) gained from studying other literature for anthropological insights. First, it is a refining exercise, learning to read what is and is not said and how to analyse a text for societal (and ontological) insights. Second, since there exist studies on trees and forests in other genres I hope to learn methods and approaches from them that will help me develop my future research.

Given the massive scope of this sub-field, I decided to focus on three genres I already have some familiarity with and authors I have read: George MacDonald, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Ursula Le Guin. In this first post I will lay the groundwork and provide the anthropological background to the study. Then each subsequent post will focus on a genre, a summary of the selected author, work, and a critical analysis. The final post will be a synthesis of the whole, with reflections and considerations. The overall goal is to come back to the future research on trees in the Hebrew Bible, but the literary study on human-arboreal relations in these genres is also interesting in itself.

This first post may be the most technical, but I think it will all come together for you when the genre examples are introduced in the forthcoming posts. This is also likely to be less interesting if you’re here primarily to read about ents, cursed forests, or the dream-state of trees, but as I had to first understand this before I was able to understand the import of literary forests and trees for our world, I hope you will bear with me!

First Steps

First, an overview of what anthropology offers to this type of study. At its core, it is a plumb line that keeps the focus of the research on the intended subject: humans, their condition and society. Over the centuries, anthropology has explored what society structures and norms tell us about humanity (Bernard and Gravlee 2015:1). The historical/traditional model of anthropology focused on going “far away” (from the usually European-based research center) to a society that was different from that of the [European] anthropologists’ (Bernard and Gravlee 2015:2). The distance allowed the researchers to see more clearly the norms and mores3 underlying a community. It is only in recent decades that anthropologists have begun to undertake ethnographic work closer to home, in North American and Europe, striving to understand their own or adjacent societies with the tools developed abroad (Bernard and Gravlee 2015:5). The difficulty of seeing what is presumably familiar was offset by the methodology anthropologists had developed in dissimilar societies.

Works of literature often include commentaries on or reflections of the author’s reality. Analysing a story from an anthropological perspective may be a productive exercise in order to understand the world of the author—that is, our world—via the story. The one reality may be a mirror of this world or a window to the other and/or an act of interpretation or translation which may reveal reality as it is or is not, as it should be or is wished to be. The three genres reviewed here—fairy tale, fantasy, and sci-fi—are well-established in their use of forests and trees, which provide an ideal ground on which to examine the potential contribution of literary trees and forests to anthropological understanding. As traditional anthropological work focused on going to far-away communities to bring insights back to the anthropologists’ home societies, here the world of story serves as the far-away land from which we gain insights to bring back to our world.

The particular type of anthropology undertaken here may be classified as hermeneutical. While hermeneutics initially developed as a tool of interpretive analysis in biblical studies, anthropology developed hermeneutics from that foundation of continual interpretation of “the words of those texts in order to understand their original meaning and their directives for living in the present” (Bernard 2002:449) to application in other “texts”, that is, oral narratives, be they speeches, story telling, performances, and so on (Bernard 2002:450). The anthropological hermeneutical analysis definition may be taken from Bernard’s neat summary: “This is hermeneutical analysis—the search for meanings and the interconnection in the expression of culture” (2002:451).

Trees in the Hebrew text have been studied for their meaning, theologically, as metaphors, as well as symbolic implications in religious, and, in Christian circles, the meaning of the text for present application. While recent trends aim to understand the Bible through “non-Western eyes”,^⁠4 that focus is on a cross-cultural framework. In contrast, the anthropological goal is not necessarily focused on what the text means, rather, but to reconsider the texts in light of what they can tell us about the society that produced them. (Which then comes back around to help us understand the meaning of the text where we began.)

Contemporary anthropological studies of trees provide resources and perspectives for considering trees in the ancient society. This may be broadly categorized as an interest in nature-society relations, e.g. how the non-human factors shape a society and vice-versa. Here I will note that the non-human factors are significant in comparison to the human factors. But this is an anthropo-centric5 discipline and the primary interest in the research is the human community. What we can learn about arboreal culture in the Hebrew text is of interest, but the lens is irrevocably focused on the human.

The contemporary research into this subject usually falls within multi-species ethnography, also termed anthropology-beyond-the-human, with specific focus on arboreal-human relations. In short, it looks to study the non-humans (plants and animals, for example) present in human society and how the human and the non-human influence the formation of the community overall. One of the primary distinctives of this methodology is the perspective it brings to defining what it means to be human (Ogden Hall Tanita 2013:6) and thus in doing so it refines the core of the discipline: what is unique about anthropology? If ethnography is understood as the work of describing the lives of those in a given society, and anthropology is focused on understanding the human and our—all species—shared world (see Ingold 2011:229), anthropology-beyond-the-human seeks to “educate our perception” of the world, that is, the human perception (Ingold 2011:229, emphasis original). If anthropology beyond the human is interested in how different species are shaped and shaping each other (Kirksey Helmrich 2010), it follows that “becoming with” is the nexus for not just understanding the human species but all species (Haraway 2008:244; Kirksey Helmreich 2010:546; Ingold 2013:20-21). In this becoming with, all agents—be they human, flora or fauna, or even (perhaps) mountains, glaciers, and rivers (see Van Dooren et all 2016:4)—are influenced by the others and the nature of the relations in a given “contact zone” (Ingold 2013:21). The hierarchy, of power or value, that might be noted in previous anthropological studies is broken down in this relation of withness between agents who are equal in their unique differences (Ingold 2013:21).

In literary anthropology, the same interests of anthropology-beyond-the-human inform the study of human-arboreal relations in the story. The questions asked of the stories will be considered in light of common anthropological inquiries: power relations between the forests and the humanoid characters, norms and mores6 utilised to construct and/or maintain societal structures, and perceptions of the other—relative to each culture within the bounds of the narrative. Further, I will reference the four conceptual spaces trees occupy, discussed in the work of Cloke and Jones: culture, agency, place, ethics (Cloke and Jones 2002). Although the focus may not be a particular tree but a forest, I believe Cloke and Jones’ argument for the value of particularity for understanding how every given tree may have a specific culture, a unique agency, a distinct place, and an ethical position, may extend to the forest when it is considered as a single entity.

Now to the literary works. As noted above, the first genre is fairy tales, and in “No Forest, No Story” I will consider the human-forest relations presented in a selection of George MacDonald’s short fairy tales. The second genre is fantasy, and, as a study of fantasy trees would not be complete without engaging with J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth in The Lord of the Rings, I examine relevant elements of Middle Earth in “The Trees are Well, All is Right in the World.” The final genre is science fiction and Ursula Le Guin’s classic short story The Word for World is Forest provides directly relevant content for anthropological interests: “The Word for Forest is the World.” These three examples from fairy tales, fantasy, and sci-fi each highlight unique aspects of human-arboreal relations that might illuminate those relations in this world. A detailed exploration of the dynamics observed in each genre, as well as in the works of specific authors, would be well worth pursuing, but for the purposes of this series, I will attempt to draw out several themes which correlate to our world’s human-arboreal concerns: interdependence, reality is more than what we see, and the essence of forests.

Bibliography

Bernard, H. R. & C. C. Gravel (eds) 2015a. Handbook of methods in cultural anthropology. (2nd edition). London: Rowman & Littlefield.
––––––– 2015b. Introduction: on methods and methods in anthropology. In Handbook of methods in cultural anthropology (eds) H. R. Bernard & C. C. Gravlee, 1–17. (2nd edition). London: Rowman & Littlefield.

Jones, O. & P. Cloke 2020. Tree Cultures: The Place of Trees and Trees in Their Place. Oxon: Routledge.

Haraway, D. J. 2016. The companion species manifesto: dogs, people, and significant otherness. In Manifestly Haraway (eds) D. J. Haraway & C. Wolfe, 91–108. University of Minnesota Press (available on-line: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt1b7x5f6.5).

Ingold, T. 2011. Being alive: essays on movement, knowledge, and description. Oxon: Routledge.
––––––– 2013. Anthropology beyond humanity. Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 38, 5–23

Kirksey, S. E. & S. Helmreich 2010. The emergence of multispecies ethnography. Cultural Anthropology 25, 545–576.

Le Guin, U. K. 2015. The Word for World is Forest. London: Gollancz.

MacDonald, G. 1999. The Complete Fairy Tales (ed U. C. Knoepflmacher). New York City, NY: Penguin Books.

Ogden, L. A., B. Hall & K. Tanita 2013. Animals, plants, people, and things: a review of multispecies ethnography. Environment and Society 4, 5–24.

Tolkien, J. R. R. June 30, 1972. [339. Letter to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph, 1972] Retrieved from, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, 1981, H. Carpenter (ed). New York City, NY: HarperCollins
––––––– 1991. The Lord of the Rings. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Van Dooren, T., E. Kirskey & U. Münster 2016. Multispecies studies: cultivating arts of attentiveness. Environmental Humanities 8, 1–23.

Over the last few years, I’ve wrestled with the question of this career shift, from non-profit and business administration to academia. I enjoy administration and have spent 20 years working in business, beginning with my first venture while still a teen (running my own Grade A dairy farm). During secondary school, I also worked for my parents’ business in managing the day-to-day office work (my parents’ reasoning was, “Why pay for a computer course at the local community college when we can just teach her as we go?”). Then, in university, I worked as the office coordinator for a department on campus. Those experiences gave me a taste for development work, which I continued after university in a practicum. Finally, I joined a start-up as a generalist and member of the strategic planning team: website management, newsletter writing, answering queries, conducting interviews, creating forms and processes, researching and choosing systems, training staff in them, et cetera. 

I loved the work and felt as though I was contributing practically to the Kingdom of God; I thrived in the administrative work (that so many don’t enjoy!) and found that taking on those tasks empowered others to do the work God has given them. In part, I do think it is this sense of responsibility to share the Gospel that was a contributing factor to pursuing that work. However, administration is one of my primary giftings and skill sets. I grew up with a strong sense of purpose and responsibility, and I wanted to make a difference. Engaging in missions seemed like a good way to go.

The Great Commission

However, my last job forced me to face the Word. God doesn’t actually command everyone to be missionaries, nor is it the most important or elite position for Christians.1 Matthew 28:18-20 is often translated as in the ESV edition, as follows (emphasis mine):

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The imperative “go” and “make”  in English make this command seem non-negotiable for all Christians (and, ergo, anything less makes one less). However, this is influenced more by the popularity of the King James text and the translators’ attempt to retain that sense, vs the original Greek text. In the Greek, the verbs are not all imperative. Only one verb is an imperative: disciple. The other three are participles: go, baptize, and teach. Meaning, a more accurate English translation could be written as such (emphasis mine):

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, as you are going, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

In other words, the “going” is not mandatory. In accordance with the rest of Scripture—Scripture interprets Scripture—we know that we are to do all things for the glory of God.2 Being a homemaker, raising a family, caring for elderly parents–these glorify God. Teaching high school math glorifies God. Working in an automotive plant glorifies God. Cleaning floors and stocking shelves in a grocery store glorifies God. 

The point is, as we are going about whatever it is God has given us to do, we can glorify God, making disciples, baptizing and teaching them the Gospel. 

Acceptance

Bit by bit, I came to accept that I didn’t have to remain in a Christian workplace, in a missions-related job, in order to glorify God. And while I’d begun the master’s degree with the intent of opening doors to Hebrew-English editing and translation (expanding my job possibilities), I thoroughly enjoyed the academic research and writing.

I didn’t come face-to-face with the academic question until my advisor tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to consider switching to the thesis track. After pondering it for a while, I asked to meet with the professor. I’d predetermined that I’d refuse the offer if he said anything close to the following: “We need more students in the thesis track in the department,” or “It looks good for me to have more students writing academic theses.” 

Instead, when I asked him, “Why would you tell any student to write an academic thesis?” he responded, “No matter what you do after this degree, learning how to take a single topic, research it extensively, and express it in a way that others can understand it—that is a skill that will benefit you in every part of life.” Alright, I admitted, that’s a good argument. Next, I asked, “What is a single, dominating principle by which you work?” His response: “To handle the text rightly.”

I gave up. 

When an academic (unknowingly?) quotes the foremost guideline of studying the Word of God as his primary rule, I’ll admit that there’s strong support for this being a memo from God. More so, that verse was the one literally engraven in the cornerstone of my first university. 

From there, I entered fully into the academic work but it took several years to make up my mind about continued studies. As the months rolled on and my enjoyment grew, I also learned more about the work of academia, and experienced the lack of connection between linguistics and Semitic linguistics with biblical studies and theology. (As I noted in my introduction, I believe interdisciplinary work is vital.) It came to pass that the completion of my master’s degree coincided with wrapping up my job. The main option before me was academia, but I still felt the need to work out in my own mind and heart where academia fits into the Kingdom of God.

That was the main question for my sabbatical. The time off started well, and after several weeks in, the conversations and time to ponder had already helped me accept that this was an acceptable career switch for a Christian.

Learning in War-Time

Then, war. 

7 October 2023. The attack, massacre, and outbreak of full-scale war in my country left me reeling. It has been a year of political maneuvering, military engagement, suffering, grief, and death, on both sides of the line. Many times, I wondered, what future is there here? This country is torn, the grievances are woven into our blood and land, and who would—or could— forgive? Is there any hope?

Discursion

Over the summer, I worked with a charity that has a 200-year-old history of ministering in Jesus’ name in this region, to both Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, religious and secular. Over the decades they have provided job training, economic aid, food baskets, medical care, legal counsel, and social services. Here I saw the need up close. From supporting the schools in the South of Israel, where suicide among students’ parents and their teachers is endemic, to providing support to schools around Bethlehem where children resort to violence because they have no playgrounds, no sports, no hope—no vision for a life where love eclipses power. From providing legal support to Muslim women who are shamed in Sharia court (Muslim residents in the West Bank and Gaza live under Sharia law) for testifying against their abusive husbands, to ensuring that a family receives compensation when the husband is permanently disabled in a workplace injury. From the language classes provided for women and youth to broaden their horizons, to the mobile medical clinic bringing treatment to villages where no health care is available.

This is love, the love Jesus commanded of his disciples. And it has continued through multiple wars—regional and world wide—the collapse of an empire, the establishment of a country, economic collapse, immigration waves, societal splits, and more. It is a difficult work, fraught with challenges, external opposition and internal disagreements, but yet…when any of the staff or volunteers pause and lift their heads, they pour forth the stories of God’s power working miracles in the lives of those who are loved in the name of Jesus. One day I pray we can share those stories… For one day the shroud will come off the Middle East and the Enemy and the world will be astounded at what God has done here.

Faith, I’ve long known, is a choice. It is about whom I choose to have faith in that makes the difference. And faith in the God of the Universe, the crucified, risen and ascended Jesus, the present and abiding Spirit of God—in him there is hope.

C.S. Lewis on Learning in War-Time

Many weeks after the war began, the question of the career switch slowly rose again. How could I justify more studies and work in such an extraneous-seeming-field as academia when the human needs of the war were incessantly before me?

Years ago, I read a collection of C. S. Lewis’ essays, including his sermon, “Learning in War-Time”.3 While he was writing during World War 2, the question remains the same, as he eloquently expressed:

Even if we ourselves should happen not to be interrupted by death or military service, why should we—indeed how can we—continue to take an interest in these placid occupations when the lives of our friends and the liberties of Europe are in the balance? Is it not like fiddling while Rome burns?

His argument is worth summarizing. Lewis’ perspective is that of a Christian, and thus he reframes the felt issue in an eternal framework. War only brings to the fore the fact all people must face, and normally ignore: war reminds us of our coming death. If every human being is, Christians believe, moving towards heaven or hell, how can we spend our limited time doing anything but share the Gospel to prevent others from going to hell? Or, from another perspective during wartime, how can we be so “frivolous and selfish as to think of anything but the war?”

Lewis breaks down the thinking behind these questions. The assumption is that Christians should “become exclusively and explicitly religious”, or, for the nationalist, “exclusively national”. He continues to expound the argument that life, whether Christian or non-Christian, continues much the same before and after conversion or enlistment. If one’s entire being is subsumed by religion or nationalism, the result is a way of being that is less than human, marked by an irrational obsession with what should be one aspect of life. War is, Lewis reminds us, “a finite object”, therefore it is an inadequate subject around which to orient the infinite human soul. He does not dismiss the righteousness of certain causes, in fact he believes Christians have a duty to serve in such cases and need to discern if that is the calling God has given them. But, Lewis counters, if that cause becomes the single obsession of the Christian, “he would become a monomaniac.” In short: “The rescue of drowning men is, then, a duty worth dying for, but not worth living for.”

Regarding religion, Lewis adds the nuance that it is the center around which human life revolves, but he points out that even the Apostle Paul mandates for people to work and live their lives. This is a paradox, made clear by 1 Corinthians 10:31: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” Lewis continues,

Christianity does not simply replace our natural life and substitute a new one: it is rather a new organization which exploits, to its own supernatural ends, these natural materials.

Lewis concludes that the scholarly work may be pursued for the glory of God. This is true in war-time and in peace-time. If one’s path is academia, then it should be pursued whole-heartedly for God.

The question of the value of academic work at any time, such as philosophy (in Lewis’ example), is answered in part by the point that the whole world is not Christian. Bad philosophy exists, Lewis writes, therefore “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.” Moreover, God created us with a desire to know him (through whatever discipline), and it is a desire that he approves in Scripture. Striving to know God, for our own sake or for others, is a work that can be done in confidence. Lewis concludes,

Humility, no less than the appetite, encourages us to concentrate simply on the knowledge of the beauty, not too much concerning ourselves with their ultimate relevance to the vision of God. That relevance may not be intended for us but for our betters—for men [sic] who come after and find the spiritual significance of what we dug out in blind and humble obedience to our vocation.

Changing Vocation in War-Time

As I pondered these words, I do see that this transition to academia, a different vocation as it were, is tenable in war and peace—if it is the vocation God has called me to. Lewis’ assessment that the war makes no difference but to force us to reckon with should have been considered anyway is precisely the point. 

The war which began on 7 October 2023 did not change the journey I’d undertaken up to that black date. It forced me to ensure I had faced the questions Lewis presents. In the months since the war began, I have prayed and pondered, but it was the summer work in the charity that helped clarify my comprehension and awareness of where God is leading. It is the type of work I’ve been doing for nearly 20 years, in administration and development, and it was once the type of work that I thrived upon. But that season of full-time work in business and nonprofit administration is done. My heart is not there, and neither is the peace of God that once filled me with as I lived in his will. It is the last few sentences in a chapter that has been winding down for some time. I am grateful for God’s grace in giving me this opportunity, both to serve the charity and to grow into the confident awareness that it is done.

Now I am sure of my direction in this season, knowing and seeing God’s leading and provision. I do not know where it will take me, but I am confident of this step, at least.

Onwards and upwards, as they say.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

Restless under springing leaves, my spirit
Churns and chunners in this blithering wind,
Roaming far in memories imagined:
Would I take the road o'er? I’d not commit
But for that longing deep which calls me on
In hope defiant midst my worries odd
Of life and livelihood—alone I trod
The greening sward, expecting with each dawn
The light to now unveil my far-flung way.
When yet each day remains in fog and mist,
Of attention unpaid and glimpses missed
In work at hand, tasks to do, words to weigh,
Along these journeys full, wherein old signs
Hide for quiet hearts to see faith’s designs.

I am writing this first letter in your honor. You encouraged me to share my words and provided a safe space in which to do so. You have read countless drafts of myriad texts, caught innumerable convoluted phrases, pared down my superfluous use of poetic expressions, and exhorted me to continue. Our many conversations have refined my thinking and sharpened my writing. This venture would not be possible without your friendship, your practical support, and your constant encouragement to keep on writing. Thank you.

And now to my new readers.

Welcome! 

The primary goal of In My Garden Grew… is to share my academic journey in a way that is intelligible and beneficial to those outside my field, hopefully sparking new thoughts, insight from a field you might not know very well, and maybe even a bit of encouragement. For myself, it challenges me to articulate what I think I know.

In this first letter, I will introduce the scope of this newsletter, my research, elements of my framework, a key value, and what you can expect. The current plan is to send two letters per month. One will be on an academic subject, the other will reflect my current ponderings and readings, and perhaps a poem now-and-again.

Scope
Each newsletter will be in an essay form and will focus on one primary topic. My intent, however, is to go beyond merely translating an academic article into lay terms. As I learn, I hope to share how the various threads interact and influence my thinking.

Research
On the academic front, the topics will include linguistics: a brief introduction to the field, then specifically Semitic linguistics1, and the language of the Hebrew Bible. I will consider how Hebrew linguistics relates to biblical studies and theology as I continue to wrestle with that question and work out my own hermeneutic.2 Cultural context issues have come to the fore in my own studies recently, and the cross-cultural (and cross-time) considerations are important as well. Means and methods of application hover constantly in the back of my mind. Further down the road, as I learn more about anthropology3 and the study of ontology4, I will share those reflections as well.

Framework

Along the way, various other threads of thinking may surface. I find the analogy of a tapestry to be helpful here: as a tapestry reveals and conceals its colors in a given scene, close inspection may hint at the underlying strands which contribute depth and shape. As the tapestry presents a story, so may my journey become apparent along the way. My perspective is that of a narrative, each individual scene a part of the whole. In this tapestry, the “scene” is my research project, and the “threads” are the many background pieces that influence the way that scene looks.

In order to have a scene, it needs a framework. Over the last few years of work on my Masters in Hebrew Language, my advisor went to great lengths to teach me the fundamental elements that need to make up the framework of my research. If the work itself is a tapestry, perhaps we can picture these as the supports that keep it aligned, framed and focused. Those supports, for my advisor, are humility, structure, and prioritization. In subsequent letters, I hope to share more of the value of structure and prioritization, but for now, let us consider humility; it has become an ever-present awareness as I write.. 

Humility

My advisor set humility as a foundation for working with him.

“You will finish this degree and you will be a master of the Hebrew Language. You will not know everything. But there are many things you will know. The challenge is to stand in the tension, aware of what you do know and what you do not know.”

Not a conversation or meeting passed without his eloquently reminding me of the essential place of intellectual humility in my work. Scientia potestas est—knowledge is power, so Thomas Hobbes famously plagiarized Sir Francis Bacon5—and its primacy in our Information Age lends itself to the reluctance of an admission of ignorance. As finite human beings, ignorance is woven into our being. Pretending otherwise is naive at the best, and arrogant at the worst. I’ve fallen into this particular pit many times.

It is a tension that requires deliberate attention, for we are liable to slip one way or another in any given moment. In my own experience, it is when I am most sure of my understanding that I fall into dangerous over-confidence. About half-way through writing my master’s thesis, I submitted a section for review. It was on a subject that I was well-versed in, and I was sure that I not only grasped the central elements but I’d expressed it with exquisite clarity. Additionally, I was confident it was my best writing yet. Going into the meeting with my advisor, I expected his praise and a quick review, and then we’d continue to the next section. His computer, I noted upon entering his office, did not have the document pulled up; I reminded him that I had sent it, but I could pull it up on my computer if he preferred. Instead, he sat back in his chair and proceeded to speak (again) on ways of knowing. My impatience grew and I silently opened the document while only partially listening to his soliloquy on epistemology. He ignored my frustration, and continued in his colloquial reflection on the dangers and benefits presented by both modernism and post-modernism. Finally, he drew me into the conversation as we veered into considering the representation of these philosophies in our context (contemporary Israeli history and society). When our time ran out, I was thoroughly engaged in the conversation, but then realized we’d not spoken at all about my research or the section I submitted. His response: “Keep writing, we’ll get to that next week.” I returned home, annoyed at the vagaries of professors, unsure of the point of our meeting. Then, I opened up the aforementioned section. With our conversation fresh in our memory, I looked at my words with a refreshed perspective—and immediate embarrassment. It is the most arrogant piece of writing I’ve ever been ashamed to call my own.

Humility, I continue to learn, takes work. It is more than adding in a few qualifiers to a sentence. While qualifiers are part of writing with intellectual humility, identifying what I can know and what is beyond my current knowledge must be woven into the entire framework and perspective of my work. It may be pedestrian to simply state, but for myself I needed the reminder in front of me from the beginning, and throughout the work, as I did in my thesis :

Of necessity, portions of the analysis must remain inconclusive; this is not a failure, but merely the nature of such research. Everything cannot be known and recognizing those limitations is part and parcel of this work. With that is the recognition that much can be known, and it is in the tension between what can be known and what cannot be known that I endeavor to present the results of my analysis.6

I decided I would rather err on the side of caution, than fall into arrogance. If I do not habituate this awareness and exercise humility deliberately, then I will not succeed in incorporating it into my work. Key tools of humility, particularly in academic work, are the pedantic citations, references, footnotes, and bibliography. I must be able to support every step of my analysis and show the background and methodologies that support my conclusions. As an exercise in humility, it is an excellent means for forcing me to reckon with what I think I know, and drawing the line at what I do not know. This thread of humility is one of the foundational elements I would weave into all my works.

Values
In the Academy (as it is referred to in such august places as Cambridge University), other priorities often take precedence over humility. Esoteric conversations, unintelligible to any not in the same niche, are the order of the day. The abstract reigns over the practical, the theoretical over the pragmatic. The look of condescension I received upon asking a PhD student to give me a summary of his methodology was brushed over with a laugh: “I’ve not thought about methodology since my undergraduate days!” It is the presumption of youth to leave behind the foundations of their discipline, particularly in these universities where many doctoral students have not yet reached the grand old age of 30. Thankfully, it is not impossible to find a heightened awareness of one’s ability to err or the firm grasp of the essential tools among the tenured and senior scholars. As Dr. Mary Douglas, a prominent anthropologist of the 20^th century, noted about her mistakes, “Longevity is a blessing in that it gave me time to discover them.”7

A development in recent decades is the slowly growing awareness of the cost of siloed research (in certain circles, at least). In fields such as medicine and engineering, specialized studies were often a positive, and needed, development (I am thankful my barber is not my dentist). The fruit of specializations has produced information and research far beyond what a generalist could accomplish in her lifetime. But, in the humanities, it has detriments. One professor gave the following example:

Merneptah Victory Stele8

A stele is discovered in an archaeological dig. The archeologists look at the location and physical context of its finding. The linguists define the phonology, morphology, and syntax. The epigraphers peer at the writing itself. The philologists consider the contemporaneous culture, its history and economics. The historians ponder the content of the text. The art historians elaborate on the symbols. And (more often than not) all these specialists do not consult with each other, nor reference each others’ fields, nor take all the pieces and put them back together. In many cases, they areoblivious of parallel research.9

It may sound ludicrous to those outside the Academy, but I can attest to this phenomena through personal experiences. The cost of such stringent attachment to specialized knowledge may cripple the research; what may stump the scholar in one discipline may be supplemented or even revealed by another, to say the least. In recent years, cross-consulting may be more encouraged (e.g. a biblical studies student drawing on Semitic linguistics), but while leading universities may advertise their prioritisation interdisciplinary research, in practice it has yet to be established.10 An interdisciplinary approach helps to negate the fragmentation of the disciplines and provide a more balanced result, but it is not easy. One of the first challenges is the aforementioned disapproval found in the majority of the academic communities, within the university systems and by the scholars themselves. Another is that, due to the specialization, it takes great time and effort to master the tools of different disciplines. 

This raises the question that I have wrestled with for several years now. Why should I fight for an interdisciplinary framework? At the end of a year’s intensive prayer, pondering, research, and consultations, after listening to proponents and opponents, it is more simple than not: my approach is interdisciplinary because my life experiences to date have been invaluable for preparing and training me for this academic chapter. My approach to the field of Hebrew language research is irrevocably shaped by every aspect of my life, ranging from my formal education, professional work, international experience, to my teachers, readings, religious beliefs, communities, and family historicity. The perspective and skills I currently hold are not the sole result of five years’ study for a master’s degree, but the ongoing accumulation of Life in all its diversity and complexities. The narrative of my life, the multitude of threads, inform my work and evidence the value of varied perspectives. Therefore, I will continue to develop an interdisciplinary framework because I believe it is the keystone to carrying out the research before me. 

Next
My proposed, developing doctoral research project centers on the nature of the root and form in ancient Hebrew, their relationship to the construction of meaning, and what (if any) ontology is reflected in the very form and structure of the language.11 From one angle, it is clearly a matter of Semitic linguistics.12 In another, it easily fits into biblical studies, or even theology, considering that the corpus is the Hebrew Bible. An alternative may be philosophy, and specifically the philosophy of language. Yet an additional perspective yields anthropology as the field wherein ontology is explored. 

In this past season, I explored and pondered the benefits of multiple options and finally concluded that Semitic linguistics and anthropology are the most promising starting point for leaving the future open. I already attained a degree in Bible and Theology, as well as an associates equivalent in Philosophy and Western Civilization. Those are fields I can delve into independently, at this point, as well as consult with scholars in the field. While I have a second undergraduate degree in intercultural studies that touched anthropology, it was merely enough to make me aware of the limits of my knowledge in this area. Retaining Semitic linguistics is necessary, as wrestling with the root and form of Semitics is a technical challenge that will push me far beyond my master’s level engagement. Thus, it is Semitics and anthropology that I believe will offer the best intersection for the research, both in carrying it out and for extending into other fields.

This autumn, I began the one year MRes in Anthropology at the University of St. Andrews (Scotland). During the program, Lord-willing, I will apply for the Global PhD program between St. Andrew’s and the University of Haifa, where I completed my master’s degree. Bridging anthropology in St. Andrew’s and Semitics in Haifa, the West and the Middle East, will, I believe, demand a level of engagement with differing worldviews that can only benefit this particular research project. It will not be a short, nor an easy, journey, but then, a vocation should be an adventure. 

If I can, like Tolkien’s Samwise, persevere, remembering that the stories worth telling are the stories where each person had many opportunities to turn back but did not, then I will be satisfied.13 This is the start of a new chapter, or even a book. It is exciting. It is daunting. And often it is overwhelming and demands I choose to be courageous against the fear of uncertainty. How it will develop, I do not know. But, that is precisely the nature of an adventure.

Wisdom begins in wonder.

Tamar