Practicing Grateful Interbeing: Tree-Hugging as Unlearning Unbelonging

This paper explores tree-hugging as a case study for our collective learning of unbelonging and how a practice of embracing our barked, branched and deeply rooted kin can help us reclaim sacred earthly interbeing. Trees were once revered, celebrated and given offerings of gratitude. But colonialization and the Industrial Revolution ushered in the story of earth-as-resources and the trees’ story, the earth’s story, changed. In that clear-cut logging transition, and the fight to save trees, “tree-hugger” became a derogatory accusation. The trajectory of our tree alienation and a new path of reclaiming tree love and kinship, of earthly belonging, are shared.