The Only Tree in the World with Its Own Feast Day
Discounting the ubiquitous Christmas Tree, which is not one tree but millions, the Árbol del Tule has to be the only tree in the world with its own feast day.
If you travel to the little town of Tule (pron. “too-lay”) in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico, on the second Monday of October, you will find yourself in the midst of a celebration as oversized as the dimensions of the tree itself. The local people love their tree enough to have given it a feast day all its own.
It is a Montezuma Cypress tree, and its dimensions, as you can probably tell from the picture, are gigantic!
46.1 feet in diameter (a four-story building on its side);
137.8 feet in circumference (you would need 30 people standing with arms spread, fingertip to fingertip, to surround the whole tree);
Sprouted from a single root (not a conglomeration of trees growing together);
Approximately 120 feet tall (top branches can reach up to 140 feet).
Expert arborists estimate the tree to be between 1200 and 3000 years old, but these are only guesses. No one knows for sure. The immense work of nature is the very definition of “ancient.”
The tree bark also manifests some very interesting designs. Little kids serve as tour guides and, for ten pesos, will take you around the tree showing you curious designs of animal images and human faces formed by the bark naturally over centuries.
So, in addition to being a colossus, it is also a work of art! It’s fitting that such a venerable tree, standing on the grounds of a Catholic Church, should have its own feast day, isn’t it?
I’m sure when the psalmist saw the famed Cedars of Lebanon, he marveled at them like we look in wonder at the Árbol del Tule. The very existence of a beautiful work of nature caused him to draw a spiritual analogy about the blessings of fidelity to the Lord.
But then again, all sacred windows in the world of nature do that:
The just shall flourish like the palm tree, shall grow like a cedar of Lebanon. Planted in the house of the LORD, they shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall bear fruit even in old age, they will stay fresh and green, To proclaim: “The LORD is just; my rock, in whom there is no wrong. (Ps 92:14-15)
Photo Credits: Nathan Gibbs, Flickr; Gengiskanhg, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
