Ph. by Anna Rapisarda
Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a birch forest, with big ferns tickling your legs?
We have – on the mountains that dominate the eastern bank of Lake Como.
As soon as you can, search and find one!
When you enter, an ancestral call to an ancient past will awaken in you, the same one that led us, once again, to tell one of the stories of these illuminating trees.
Light in the woods
“Can you see the woods? It is dark. It scared the children. So my father planted birch trees to calm their anguish. When Agata was little, I told her to look at the white of these trunks and not at the black of the woods”.
Pioneering and wandering
Birches are pioneer trees, “wandering plants that insist on discovering new territories, where they can grow vigorously and generously prepare the way for the seeds of other trees that will make up the wood. That is the reason why they don’t live long (…) “.
Where birches dare
Given their slender and graceful appearance, with their light and luminous canopy, you would not expect the birches to be mighty warriors, sinking their roots where no other tree would dare. And with the wind, their faithful squire, they spread their small and light seeds to conquer the world.
The “Ladies of the forests”
Generation after generation, they prepare the ground for the wood and sacrifice themselves for it.
The light, partially managing to cross their canopy, warms the earth, thus preparing the proliferation of new forms of life, which sometimes choke the birches themselves, leading them to sacrifice. Trees with a tenacious and decidedly unselfish character.
“I can only love the person, who on a spring day will prefer a birch to me”
(Marina Ivanovna Cvetaeva)
“Le voci delle betulle” by Eloisa Donadelli (Sperling & Kupfer, 2018)