Last week we were in Algonquin Park where I provided worship leadership in the Cathedral of the Trees summer ministry. The United Church trailer for participating clergy is situated beneath towering white pines in the Lake of Two Rivers campground.
Yesterday, on Hiroshima Memorial Day, I learned of another white pine, this one a small Japanese bonsai with an extraordinary history. Read this by James Gould-Bourn:
I can barely keep my basil plant alive, but this remarkable bonsai tree has been around for nearly 400 years. Planted in 1625, the tree is currently 394-years-old, and if that isn’t impressive enough already, it also survived the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. The tree belonged to the Yamaki family, who in 1945 lived just two miles away from the spot on which American forces dropped the bomb that killed an estimated 140,000 people. Somewhat amazingly, the tree and the Yamaki family survived the blast relatively unharmed.
It’s currently housed in the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. It was given as a gift to the United States by bonsai master Masaru Yamaki in 1976. Staff at the arboretum were unaware of the white pine’s connection to Hiroshima until 2001, when Yamaki’s grandsons explained its extraordinary history while visiting the collection.
How fitting that this pine withstood the worst that humanity could inflict upon it and now resides in the country considered the greatest enemy of the Japanese during WW2. Truly a tree of life.
Pine Cleft Rock -- Tom Tomson
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