The Love Experiment

Many years ago at a toxic workplace, I sought respite from the indoor environment, so I decided to purposefully send love to a sapling tree consistently and see what unfolded.

The short job was unusually arduous in my long career, but I refused to give up on love because of the dearth of affection and joy around me.

My designated parking spot was underneath the baby hardwood sapling.

"If only this tree were a little larger, I could have some shade for my car," I complained out loud to no one the first week.

Every morning when I parked, cycling through the seasons of warm springs, hot autumns, and freezing winters, I took a moment and practiced intentionally opening my heart and sending love to the little tree.

I imagined waves of tiny red Valentine hearts flowing in the direction of the grey bark, from my heart to its trunk.

When the tree budded in the springtime, I silently congratulated it. I would touch its tiny branches in a gesture of support.

During the hot summer, I would gently hold one of its leaves between my thumb and forefinger to say hello and offer admiration for all of its growth.

When it was time to leave at the end of the workday, I would say goodbye to the tree in whispers and wish it a good night.

It felt as if it was my only friend in a sea of unhappy colleagues.

This intentional tree-love experiment of mine took tree-hugging to a new level. No one seemed to notice my efforts, their noses to the ground in and out of their cars daily, steeling themselves for the grind inside the offices.

I rarely forgot my mission to love. The tree was the purest living organism in my day, and it was vulnerable. I loved it all the more.

The sapling wore the training wheels of wooden stakes to keep it upright for the first year. The wooden stakes were wired around its trunk. I felt the pain of the wire in its bark as the tree grew.

One day after work, I unleashed it from the stakes and wire when no one was around. I sent the sapling more waves of love from my heart.

At the end of sweltering days, I brought a cup of ice from indoors to my little friend's base and unloaded the cubes around it. They melted before I could back out my car.

During the third summer with the tree, I had some shade. It was noticeable that the other new trees in the parking lot were far behind the growth of my love-experiment tree.

I began to feel a little sad. Why had I not thought of intentionally sending love to each tree all that time? It would not have taken that much more effort.

Maybe I had half-believed that my love could make a difference, but it appeared that it had. There was no other obvious explanation as all the trees had been planted and grown in the same environment.

I shifted into turbo-charged love for the sapling's siblings. They had all grown and been harvested together I imagined.

Maybe they knew one another, on some level.

Consciousness experts say that trees are interconnected through roots and the soil. Maybe a single tree's discomfort was felt by all of its sapling siblings.

I changed my routine so that when I pulled up in the morning under the tree, instead of a few minutes of love sent to one tree, I sat in my car and took ten minutes to consciously send love to the half dozen other young trees.

My colleagues did notice when I brought multiple cups of ice to the trunks at the end of a hot day.

As my time at the wearing job drew to a close, I promised myself I would revisit the parking lot annually. I resolved to check on my tree friends.

The once fragile sapling grew into a sturdy sentinel, standing tall amidst its companions, who also thrived - a testament to the transformative power of love and intentional care.