The Black Walnut Grove

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

My cabin is nestled in a black walnut grove. The grey-black trees stand tall and firm, like guardians. Their thick branches reach out and around, embracing. Lichen, moss, and vines adorn them in a manner that you’re sure is ceremonial. They are trees and not just trees, like in the way that you know you’ve had dreams that weren’t just dreams. I’m getting to that.

The black walnut is an edge species, meaning that it is neither of the forest nor the field. Its role is not to fit quite in. It’s also considered a pioneer species, meaning that it’s one of the first to show up when a place needs healing. It has been widely regarded for its utility: the dark wood—easily worked as hardwoods go—sap sugars, brown dye from the nut hulls, and nut meat and oil, despite the fact that it is one tough nut to crack. Medicinally, among other things, it has been used to address a wide range of skin and gut issues. 

I think I was in my late twenties when the first part of the dream came to me. I’m pretty sure that it was after my mother’s death. So, I would have been twenty-six, at least.

I was listening to a young woman talk about her stepmother. She was saying that the thing she appreciated most about her was her sense of gratitude. Her stepmother was a deeply grateful person. It was like gratitude was what her stepmother lived on—her breath, her sustenance. The young woman went on to say that when she was a child, she didn’t think much about it; it was just the way her stepmother was. However, as she grew older and began to frequent the edges of adult conversations, she started to learn things about her stepmother’s life before she had become her stepmother. Her stepmother’s life, she learned, had been difficult. At times, very difficult. This surprised her and impacted her deeply. She considered herself lucky. She was well loved and supported. To be truthful, she was quite privileged. If her stepmother could be so grateful despite an affluence of dark days, then certainly she could be more grateful for all that she had. She decided to become a grateful person, like her stepmother.

When I awoke from the dream, I thought it beautiful. It felt bittersweet—like something that exists at the interface of sadness and joy. It couldn’t fully occupy either sentiment, but contained both, actively. I was deeply moved by the thought of what it would be like to impart such a gift to a child, how it could transform a life, how it could transform some aspect of the world. I thought: I’m going to be grateful. I’m going adopt gratitude as a way of living. And, so, I did. Well, I’ve been trying my best, anyway.

The scientific name for the black walnut is Juglans nigra. The tree is literally of the gods; juglans is derived from jovis glans, meaning the nut of Jupiter, the king of the gods. In Autumn, when the leaves are golden and the walnuts begin to crash down on my metal roof, it can feel like the gods are having something of a temper tantrum. Some people hate the trees for this and cut them away from their homes. I learned a long time ago neither to quarrel with nor dismiss the gods. They are usually up to something beyond mortal understanding. Although there has been many a night when the walnuts have awakened me from a deep sleep, a crash, bang, causing me to bolt upright in bed, I adore them still.

I adore them sufficiently to want to grow their company. In large bushel baskets, I collect all of the nuts that fall in the driveway and on the decks. I then walk the thresholds, tossing the nuts to their destiny at the edges of my farm’s woods and meadow, along the stream courses, and at roadside, wherever they will be able to get sufficient moisture and light. If it wasn’t for my appreciation of their company, they wouldn’t be in this holler anymore. Over the decades that preceded my arrival, loggers removed all but my parent grove.

I think I was in my late forties, maybe fifty, when the second part of the dream came to me. It was short. This time, I wasn’t just listening to the story. I was watching the young woman standing behind a podium, speaking into a microphone, telling the story about her stepmother’s gratitude. People were listening. People were feeling. It was a funeral. It was my funeral. I had been the stepmother.

There’s a certain delight that I feel when I look down and, there before me, I see the first few inches of a young walnut sapling making its way into the world.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in RidgeLines: A View of Nature and Human Nature

Winner of the Nautilus Book Award gold medal for lyrical prose

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