Comments on: Iran: No Country for Old Trees

By: Religieuze plantsoenendienst bedreigt eeuwenoude bomen - Sargasso

Religieuze plantsoenendienst bedreigt eeuwenoude bomen - Sargasso — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:56:50 +0000

[...] de Iraanse religieuze plantsoenendienst al eerder met dit botte bijltje heeft gehakt vernemen wij via de Perzische blogosfeer. Bomen die op een Bahá’í begraafplaats stonden moesten het ook ontgelden. Een boom die met [...]

By: Fruit trifecta — Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

Fruit trifecta — Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:56:08 +0000

[...] better. Yesterday served up three juicy fruit tales from around the world. First, how ancient mulberry trees are being cut down in Iran because of their connection with local superstitions. While, from half a [...]

By: Peter Porcupine

Peter Porcupine — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:53:43 +0000

These are “wishing trees.” In the Celtic cultural tradition, certain old trees were called wishing trees, and the custom was that people who were hoping for health, or to have a child, or to find a marriage partner, or any other important hope in life — these people would hammer a nail into the wishing tree, or press a coin into a crack in the tree, to make their wish come true. Over years and years the tree would become bent and twisted from carrying all the hopes of the people.

The Irish poet Seamus Heaney wrote a poem in memory of his mother called “The Wishing Tree.” It imagines her as the wishing tree, ascending to heaven upon her death:

I thought of her as the wishing tree that died
And saw it lifted, root and branch, to heaven,
Trailing a shower of all that had been driven
Need by need by need into its hale
Sap-wood and bark: coin and pin and nail
Came streaming from it like a comet-tail
New-minted and dissolved. I had a vision
Of an airy branch-head rising through damp cloud,
Of turned-up faces where the tree had stood.

By: Iranian Government Stupidity

Iranian Government Stupidity — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:38:45 +0000

[...] what the Iranian government is doing to the people of Gilan province and their ancient trees: [T]he authorities have ordered the cutting down of dozens of two-centuries-old mulberry trees in the northern Gilan province under the pretext of [...]

By: Lorraine Foulkes

Lorraine Foulkes — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:04:54 +0000

It breaks my heart to read of such petty things that these adult men will stoop to, to get to hurt another man.

I believe that the human race is the worse thing that God ever created. People should stop breeding when men resort to such horrible things.

I am glad I have my animals in my life to love and to trust who also show me the same.