Pine cone parables

Pine cones - image source

I'm a compulsive collector of pine cones. It's almost impossible for me to walk through a pine wood without picking up cones. For this session I wanted to use pine cones as a way of reflecting on the nature of God and the nature of our pilgrimage of faith.

There were three parts to the session:

1. getting to know pines - we walk past them, we pick up the cones but rarely realise the elegant intricacies of their life cycles.
2. finding some Parables of the Pines - reflecting on different aspects of the pine and how that might influence our own journeys.
3. acting and reflecting - actively meditating on a specific pine cone of your choice.

Getting to know pines:

Having been banished from the house back into the garden, the potted Christmas tree was brought back indoors and around its base we had the life cycle from 

1. the male cone at the base of the tree producing pollen to 
2. the pollen spore (complete with 'air bags' to help buoyancy) floating off and hoping to find a female cone,
3. the unfertilised female cones high up in the tree (to reduce self fertilisation since wind rarely blows upwards!) receiving pollen from nearby trees,
4. the tiny pollen grain building a pollen tube from the cone surface, drilling down to find the female egg cells,
5. the fertilised egg cells growing into seeds behind the pine cone scales, 
6. the pine cone scales opening (when the conditions are right) to let the winged seeds blow in the wind to start a new seedling.

The Parables of the pines:

These are the three parables we told - the misfit, the benefactor, the architect.

Parable 1 - the misfit

The first conifer fossils date back to around 300 M yrs ago – a time when the earth’s oxygen levels were higher and huge areas of land were bordering the warm tropical and equatorial regions.

Most plants at the time were fern-like – including tree sized ferns – all adapted to warm moist conditions and all able to reproduce quickly and effectively.

The conifers were slow and ponderous in comparison. They took 2 or more years to create the next generation and even then it was only a seed rather than a proper plant like the ferns produced. True, the seed could sit out drought and even fire but there are few droughts and fires in continents bordering tropical oceans.

But things change. A hundred million years later the continents had slowly drifted together and instead of thousands of miles of coastlines, a supercontinent meant most of the landmass was far from the sea. Many areas were desert or semi desert. Water was in short supply. The age of tree ferns had gone but the slow, plodding conifers with their wind blown pollen and resilient seeds that could sit out a few bad seasons began to take over the world.

In time, the other plants would arrive that enclosed their seeds in fleshy food stores – berries and fruit – to give them a better start in life but the conifers were here and would dominate the landscape wherever tough conditions and strong seasonal changes were to be found. Many are fire adapted and wait for years until a fire has reduced competition and fertilised the soil. Then they release the precious seeds into this optimum environment.

 Parable 2 – the benefactor

Each male pine tree cone annually releases an estimated 1-2 million pollen grains. As well as benefitting female cones, pine pollen is regarded as a superfood (rich in vitamin D and anti-oxidants) with anti-aging and analgesic properties.

Native pines support a wide range of insects, birds, mammals, moss and lichens. Many types of pine needles (NOT Yew!) can be used to make a tea rich in vitamin C. Simply steep a handful of needles for 5-10 minutes. Pine nuts from all varieties of pine are edible, although some are small and not typically harvested.

Native Americans chewed pine resin as sort of a natural chewing gum. The inner bark of large pine trees is edible, and the bark from young pine twigs can be eaten as well. The inner bark can be eaten raw -- it can also be boiled, fried or cooked over a flame.

Pine resin is a natural antiseptic and disinfectant. It also has antimicrobial and antifungal properties. It can be directly applied to wounds or sores and helps keep germs out. Pine resin can also be used to staunch the flow of blood. The resin and needles of the Scots pine have traditionally been used to treat respiratory problems. 

The resin can also be used to extract splinters -- just dab some on the skin where the splinter is embedded and within a day or two the splinter should come out on its own.

Pine resin makes a great fire starter, particularly in damp settings.

Parable 3 – the architect

The pine cone structure follows the Fibonnaci sequence with 5, 8, 13 or 21 spiral sets.

When St Boniface felled the Thor Oak in Germany in front of disbelieving pagans, he saw a small fir tree sticking up through the broken boughs of the felled oak.

“This little tree,” he said, “a young child of the forest, shall be your holy tree tonight. It is the wood of peace… It is the sign of an endless life, for its leaves are ever green. See how it points upward to heaven. Let this be called the tree of the Christ-child; gather about it, not in the wild wood, but in your own homes; there it will shelter no deeds of blood, but loving gifts and rites of kindness.”

 The reflections

Some people sat with their cones, exploring and examining them. Some took them outside to look at them in the twilight. Some people wrote about them, some drew them. 

I drew my cone's shadows from different angles, reflecting on how differently something as complex as a cone appears depending on where you view it from... and reflecting that the shadows were only visible in the proximity of light. There were many thought provoking, even moving, reflections people offered. We'd encourage people to use the comments below to add their own reflection.

Alistair McNaught - January 2020