Date Night - A Blog by Mari: Promethius

In 1964, a scientist/researcher named Donald Currey was studying a certain era of Bristlecone Pines up at Wheeler peak in Nevada. He was given permission to cut down a pine in order to study the rings. The pine he cut was Promethius, the oldest living tree known to exist at over 5000 years old. What makes the tree more unique is that among the grove of trees where it lived, it was 2000 years older than the other trees. I learned of this story on July 4th, after all the vendors had gone, but before the road blocks had been removed from an unusually quiet and empty Main Street, Ventura

The story is interesting in two ways.

1. For the controversy that surrounded the chopping of the tree:

“Stories of premeditation and refusal, of shared guilt and casual assent, of callousness and caring, of curiosity and lack of concern, of value and lack of evaluation, of arrogance and ignorance, led to pointed arguments about the Forest Service’s ability to combine custodial responsibilities with a scientific and utilitarian mandate. As anyone might guess, a lot of men—each with his own political allegiance—got to calling each other bad names as a result of killing that tree, and the language escalated to terms indicating blame and bitterness, rape and murder.” (http://www.terrain.org/essays/14/cohen.htm)

The next oldest tree behind Promethius is a tree in California named Methuselah, aged at 4600 years.

And:

2. For the fact that this tree can look at us, bang its little Bristlecone limbs against its chest like a gangsta rapper that’s been challenged and say, “You ain’t got shit on me!”

5000 years.

Indeed, if you consider that time span, that’s 3000 years older than the birth of Christ.

Also, if considering averages, you are only going to live about 80 years, which is 1/62th of the life of this tree. It witnessed numerous births (in all aspects), deaths, wars, solar flares, meteor showers, shooting stars, and dying planets. A vampire of plant life: living forever and watching everything else live then die.

They say our lives are like a wink of light in the dark epoch of time; therefore, I’d say Promethius was more than just a wink. This tree was a car door opening in the middle of the night while you search for your panties after fooling around in the backseat of someone’s car.

Ah, how the story of a fallen tree on a day when Main Street feels like the Day The Earth Stood Still, could shine that very mortality-reminding light on all of my pursuits, our freedoms, opportunities, and failures. How many of us will choose to take high roads?Choose to Love? Live? Laugh? …through the majority of our wink?

Published by permission. Visit Mari's blog at http://www.mari-go-round.com/