Today I stopped by the Angel Oak on my way home. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve visited our “Grand Old Lady,” and the urge to do so could best be described as an imperative.
The Angel Oak is a Southern live oak tree located in Angel Oak Park, in Charleston, South Carolina, on Johns Island, one of South Carolina’s Sea Islands. It is estimated to be in excess of 1400 years old, stand 65 ft (20 m) tall, measure 9 ft (2.7 m) in diameter, and shade with its crown an area of 17,000 square feet (1,600 m). Its longest limb is 89 feet (27 m) in length. The tree and surrounding park have been owned by the city of Charleston since 1991.
She is so big there was no way I could get the entire tree in my pictures.
I always tend to think of our Grand Old Lady as coming into being during the reign of Constantine I [306-337 AD], probably the most significant Roman emperor of all, at least to Western Civilization. Ending the persecution of Christians, he decreed religious tolerance, all the while continuing his personal devotions to the Roman gods Mars and Apollo, their main attributes being the god of war and the sun god respectively.
War: The US Civil War started in Charleston. Sun: We bake under the hot summer sun.
But, Charleston is also a city that early on attempted to be politely tolerant of non Protestant religions. Among its many names, Charleston is known as the “City of Churches“. Yes, Charleston lost its way for a bit with the rise of the “Clan”, but before and after that most hideous chapter of our history we’ve been “politely tolerant”, even if from a “polite distance”.
Remembering the reign of the Clan in the South, the horrors, is not without inspiration. There were four couples visiting the Angel Oak when I arrived and three of the four were interracial. Young, beautiful couples enjoying each other and the beautiful day we were blessed with. A day when Sol’s disposition was mild yet still radiant.
Anyway, we do not know the exact age of the Angel Oak but perhaps she stood during the fall of the Roman Empire, the West’s decent into the “Dark Ages” [Early Middle Ages], the Plague of Justinian. She stood as the West recovered. She stood as the West reinvented itself. She stood as the West twice nearly ripped itself apart during the 20th century.
She stood safely tucked away on a barrier island through dark and terrible times. Stood witness to triumphs of humanity.
“My fate is to live among varied and confusing storms. But for you perhaps, if as I hope and wish you will live long after me, there will follow a better age. When the darkness has been dispersed, our descendants can come again in the former pure radiance.”—Petrarch
Some may find it odd that a tree inspires such ruminations on humanity, but if there is such a thing as a soul trees surely must possess one. There is nothing beautiful about the Angel Oak, well, not in the classic sense, nonetheless, beautiful in “her being”; graceful in all her ungainliness. Wise beyond even her many years. Consider all she “said” to me today.
Next year I hope to visit one of California’s coastal redwood forests. I will bring a picture of the Angel Oak and “introduce” her to her West coast “cousins”. I wonder what the Redwoods will tell me……
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