The Knowing Nonviolence of Trees

One of the little examined margins of ecological thought is the kinship between human and arboreal beings. The recent emergence of “critical plant studies” tries to remedy this, and we find ourselves in the midst of a boom of popular books on trees. Both graft enchantment at trees’ newly (re)discovered sentience and sociality onto inherited ideas of sacred groves, world trees and the apparently unstinting generosity of trees. Entwining easily with what Bron Taylor calls “dark green religion,” these discussions also often recapitulate dubious ideas of planty passivity and selflessness which are both biologically and ethically incomplete. In this talk I weave together representative contemporary discussions with the more complicated and profound sentience and sociality of the enlightenment-hosting ficus religiosa and the San Diego native Torrey Pine, precious to the Kumeyaay, to ask: what can trees teach us about the spirituality of non-violence?