Life lessons from a ginkgo tree

A gingko tree grows right outside my office window and lucky I get to watch its reliable flow.

A proud testament to resilience, it stands straight and proud through every season.

You can trace nearly the whole history of this old world through the lineage of the ginkgo tree. They’re its oldest living tree species. At 290 million years old, they predate the dinosaurs.

So, you can imagine the cool stories they tell.

Six ginkgo trees even survived the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and sprouted new life within a year. All six stand today, living proof that hope and resilience can remain in the wake of utter devastation.

In normal years, gingko trees drop their leaves in a single day. This year, though, our little tree has seemed reluctant to shed its lowest golden layer, as if it senses we could use its beauty for a few extra days. Such a brave and selfless gesture from a tiny tree.

You might look at it, standing there with its slim trunk and canopy of golden leaves and mistake it for a more frivolous tree. But, ginkgo roots run deep and they’re built to withstand challenges that would fell a lesser species.

They hold their own against all kinds of environmental threats — car exhaust, concrete encroachment, wind, erosion, and passing middle schoolers who tug their branches. Watch a ginkgo tree, planted near a sidewalk, spread its branches with joy. See its bright leaves catch the sun and know you, too can thrive in the face of difficulties and trauma.

Then, when the ginkgo tree does release its leaves and goes dormant for the year, it reminds us how important that phase is too. We all need rest and recovery at the end of our busy days.

Ginkgo trees teach us to let go and move on, that inactivity isn’t failure and growth happens even, maybe especially, when we rest.

Lastly, it’s important to note that the leaves of earth’s most enduring tree species are shaped like a heart because love, like a ginkgo tree, endures.