Like a Storm-Toppled "Phoenix" Tree, U.S. Democracy is Knocked Down, but Can Bloom Again
Before heading on the road for a couple of weeks, I wanted to offer a hopeful, but grounded, thought. America’s democracy and longstanding position as a global beacon of freedom, innovation and diversity are being battered by Trump and congressional enablers.
But, as my webcast on u-turns away from autocracy showed, reversals are possible. Democracy can bloom even after being knocked down in an awful and sustained storm - like this apple tree on the low bluff along the Lamoine, Maine, town beach near our home.
For several years I’ve been tracking the perilous situation of this tree, which, like all trees, did not choose its location. Some excreted seed or tossed fruit put it at the edge of the sea many decades ago. I’d admired its edgy persistence while it was still standing.
As I posted several years ago, Mathias Kamin III, a neighbor who’s an occasional bandmate of mine and a cider maker, makes special batches of bubbly Lamoine Pét-Nat cider from apples foraged from this and other trees around our town. “Waste not” is a core Maine tradition. (The fiddle tune in the background, called “Cider,” is by my old Hudson Valley friend Bruce Molsky.)
The tree continued to leaf out and flower even after it finally fell under the erosive force of a series of brutal onshore winter storms - an effect worsened by sea levels raised on this human-heated planet.
Insert 12:30 pm 5/25 - On Bluesky, the forest scientist
said there’s a name for such fallen, but enduring, specimens - “phoenix trees.”This Lamoine apple tree on the beach will inevitably die of course. But its essence looks destined to endure.
My friend Mathias, who also helps maintain and propagate apple trees around the region along with his fruit harvesting, has clipped “scionwood” from the fallen tree (the wood taken from one apple tree that is grafted onto root stock from another to propagate a desired variety of fruit).
As he wrote in March:
One of the most rewarding parts of this whole project, is the idea that I get to try and save, through propagation, these gorgeous salt-spray apples. Ones that have held fast to the coast for generations here in Downeast. My hope is the grafts take and that it’s well before we all get forever churned into flotsam!
Let’s stretch the metaphor a bit.
Find your way to propagate the best of America. Hand it off to others. Keep it growing.
For trees and crops, this happens with scionwood and seed exchanges in Maine, via the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. Why not with community organizing political engagement, education, and the rest?
Here’s more on scionwood conservation and sharing:
Related:
When a Tree Falls on a Coastline, Does Anybody Hear?
Rising seas are coming for this apple tree on a storm-shredded coast near our home in downeast Maine. I’ve been chronicling its fate on social media over the past couple of years. I’m blown away by the tree’s enduring capacity not only to cling to life but emerge in full flower even as its exposed roots slowly tear away from the eroding bank.